Mumbai DRI seizes heroin hidden in cooking oil cargo
Darpan News Desk IANS, 08 Oct, 2021 11:25 AM
Mumbai, Oct 8 (IANS) The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence's (DRI) Mumbai unit has seized a consignment of 25 kg heroin concealed in a consignment of groundnut oil at the Nhava Port Trust in Navi Mumbai, and arrested one person, officials said on Friday.
Following a tipoff, the DRI sleuths swooped on the port on October 4 and detected the huge narcotics contraband, valued at Rs 125 crore, among boxes of a cooking oil container arriving from Iran and are now probing the possibility of a bigger drug smuggling racket with international ramifications for India and other countries.
Further investigations led the DRI to businessman Sandeep Thakker in south Mumbai who admitted that he had given his IMPEX Code to a friend, Jayesh Sanghvi in return for a commission of Rs 10,000 on every import order from Iran.
Thakkar claimed that since he had been doing business with Sanghvi since over a decade, he trusted him and shared the IMPEX Code, but he had no knowledge that the latter was allegedly indulging in narcotics smuggling.
Following Thakkar's statement, the DRI nabbed Sanghvi on Wednesday, and charged him under relevant sections of the NDPS Act. He was remanded to DRI custody till October 11, and his past import records are being probed.
Furnishing details about the incident, Additional DCP-2 Nishant Gupta told IANS that they had received information about a firing incident in the northeast Delhi area on October 1.
The activists of Punjab Congress will walk towards Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh if Priyanka Gandhi is not released and the Union Minister's son accused of murder not arrested, said state party President Navjot Sidhu on Tuesday.
Referring to police action against protesting farmers in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, the BJP leader said, "Congress leaders who are very keen to visit Lakhimpur Kheri have not uttered a single word against police lathicharge on farmers in Hanumangarh, Rajasthan."
Comparisons are on in social media whether this arrest could change the Congress fortunes as after Indira Gandhi's arrest and later in the election in 1980 the Congress returned with a thumping majority.
During the 45-minute long meeting with the Home Minister, Channi also discussed the security situation of the state and demanded that the border must be sealed properly to effectively prevent the smuggling of weapons from Pakistan.
