Jaffer Sadiq, kingpin of ₹2,000 crore drug cartel, apprehended in Jaipur

NCB arrests Jaffer Sadiq, mastermind of ₹2,000 crore drug cartel, in Jaipur after international drug smuggling investigation.

In the early hours of Saturday, March 9, 2024, sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) apprehended Jaffer Sadiq, said to be the the mastermind behind a ₹2,000 crore drug cartel. Sadiq, a former DMK functionary who was expelled from the party after his role in the drug racket came to light, had been absconding since the last week of February, after three of his associates were arrested in Delhi. A top officer confirmed that Sadiq was apprehended from a hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

A few months ago, the NCB Headquarters, New Delhi, began an investigation following information received from New Zealand customs authorities and the Australian police that large quantities of pseudoephedrine, concealed in desiccated coconut powder, were being sent to both countries from India. Further inputs from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicated that the source of the consignments was Delhi.

Pseudoephedrine is used to make methamphetamine, a drug that has the highest demand in the world at present, and sells for approximately ₹1.5 crore per kilogram in Australia and New Zealand.

After a four-month investigation, a joint team comprising officers of the NCB and the Delhi Police found out that the operatives of the cartel in Delhi were planningto send another consignment to Australia.

Two weeks ago, the team was led to a godown in Basai Darapur, West Delhi, where they found persons packing pseudoephedrine into covers within a consignment of a multigrain food mix. The sleuths recovered 50 kilograms of pseudoephedrine and arrested three operatives of the cartel, identified as Mukesh, 34, Mujibur Rahman, 26, and Ashok Kumar, 33, of Villupuram. The trio revealed that they had sent abroad, 45 consignments of drugs over the past three years, weighing a total of 3,500 kilograms and worth around ₹2,000 crore in the international market.

The investigation revealed that Sadiq alias Bezos, 36, a Chennai resident and Tamil film producer, was the mastermind of the nexus. Sadiq was involved in the real estate business, and was a functionary of the DMK, but after his involvement in the drug cartel surfaced, he was expelled from the party. Sadiq had been absconding ever since the trio was caught in Delhi. His whereabouts had not been known, but officers of NCB had recovered incriminating documents after searching his house in Mylapore.