Pramesh Jain
As part of its investigation into the online drug racket it had uncovered at Kadugodi in April,the Narcotics wing of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) police on Thursday arrested five more people and recovered MDMA,ecstasy tablets and LSD strips worth Rs 30 lakh from them.
The accused has been identified as,Bayan Ansari,26,Arnold Pasal D’Souza,27,Anirudh Venkatachalam,23, Kanishq Reddy,23,and Santosh Krishnappa,28, were nabbed at different locations in and around Bengaluru,
Senior police official says,Anirush and Kanishq work as animation and graphic designers,Arnold is a technical developer in the IT field and Bayan and Santosh are college dropouts.
Gang followed lockdown hours
The accused would operate between 6 to 10 am during the lockdown to supply the drugs to their customers.
During investigation the accused confessed the crime and revealed that,they searched the dark net for suppliers and met a local peddler from Bengaluru,who goes by the name Vegatar.
He started supplying them with the party drugs. They made payments in Bitcoin and the drugs would be couriered to them,said the police official.
He added that the gang purchased the drugs at cheaper rates,but would sell each pill or strip for anywhere between Rs 4,000-Rs 5,000.
CCB Police stumble upon peddler network on WickerMe app:
Vegatar used an app,Wicker Me,and was part of a network where drug peddlers were rated.Their rankings depended upon the quality and quantity of the drugs and their credibility.
The technical team of the CCB is tracking down the peddlers through the app,a senior police officer,said .
So far 11 people have been arrested in connection with the case.On April 29,the CCB had earlier raided a house in Kadugodi and arrested six people including a foreign national, for allegedly peddling synthetic drugs to clients in Bengaluru.
We suspect that more people are part of this ring and efforts are on to track them down he added.
Finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,Kamal Pant,has appreciated Joint CP Crime,Sandeep Patil,DCP Crime-1,KP Ravikumar,ACP Anti-Narcotics Wing,Gautam Kumar,PIs,as, Lakshmikanthaiah,Hazaresh Killedar and other staff has been appreciated for the exemplary and commendable job done by them and a suitable reward will be given to the team he added.
