Chinese knives smuggling racket busted in Delhi, 5 held with over 14K knives

New Delhi, July 27 (IANS) A Chinese knives smuggling racket was busted here with arrest of five people, Delhi Police said on Wednesday, adding that a total of 14,053 illegal button-actuated knives were seized from their possession.

The accused were identified as Mohd Sahil, 28, Mohd Waseem, 18, Mohd Yusuf, 29, and Ashish Chawla, 43.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, South, Benita Mary Jaiker said that the matter came to notice when a PCR call was received on July 18, reporting that a courier package having 80 knives was found dropped in C.R. Park area.

On investigation, when the police analysed CCTV footage, it was revealed that the bag with the knives in it had fallen off from motorcycle of a delivery boy. It was found that each recovered knife was packed in a courier packet having the sender's address in Malviya Nagar area.

A raid was conducted at the address and two persons namely Sahil and Wasim were apprehended from a warehouse. On checking the warehouse, 533 more illegal button actuated knives were recovered.

Accordingly, the police registered a case under section 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act at C.R. Park police station and both accused were arrested.

Accused Sahil disclosed that he registered himself on online shopping apps to sell these knives othrough his company, named My Style.

He disclosed that Yusuf was working for him and used to transport the knives from Sadar Bazar to Malviya Nagar. Yusuf was also arrested and revealed that he used to purchase the above illegal knives from Chawla, who was also then arrested and 13,440 more illegal button-actuated knives were recovered from his warehouse at Sadar Bazar.

Chawla disclosed that he used to place orders in China with a particular vendor for the knives. The payment used to be made by Mayank Babbar alias Mickey, owner of K2M Importer & Exporters, whose office is in China, from where the items were sent to India in containers.

The DCP said with the arrests and recovery of the knives, the Delhi Police have busted a nefarious Indo-Chinese module which has been bulk importing prohibited button actuated knives from China for sale in India. "The investigation now onwards will focus on the lapses, if any, on the part of regulatory and facilitating authorities like customs, DGFT and on the abettors of the crime which include leading online markets where the product has been listed for sale by the arrested accused," she said.

The police official also that they are now looking at the possibility of involvement of Chinese state actors who might be in collusion with the arrested Indians into pushing the contraband and to find out what else has been pushed into India under camouflaged names and titles.