Mumbai: In a significant development, the officials of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have arrested a cultivator of opium from Madhya Pradesh, agency sources said on Friday. The DRI had recently busted a syndicate that was instrumental in smuggling of locally cultivated opium worth crores of rupees. Total four persons have been arrested in the case so far.
Based on specific intelligence that opium, a narcotic drug, was being transported from Ratlam to Mumbai in substantial quantity in a truck, the officers of DRI Mumbai mounted surveillance overnight near a toll plaza in Kasara and intercepted the said truck in the early hours of Wednesday. A thorough search of the truck resulted in recovery of 9.69 kilogram of a substance purported to be opium.
Test with Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) field test kit confirmed the presence of opium in the recovered substance. The truck driver who was given the responsibility of transporting the drugs to the receiver was then questioned. He then spilled the beans about the receiver and supplier of the consignment, sources said.
"In a follow up action, the receiver and supplier of the said consignment were apprehended at Mumbai and Ratlam respectively. Subsequently, the cultivator who diverted opium illegally was also apprehended at Mandsaur (M.P). The accused persons have been arrested under the provisions of NDPS Act. The operation reinforces the capabilities of the DRI to bust drug trafficking networks," said a DRI official.
