Heroin worth Rs 30 crore seized in Supaul, 4 held

PATNA: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths seized six kilograms of heroin worth at least Rs 30 crore in international market from Kosi bridge near Asanpur Kupha on NH-57 in Supaul district on Thursday. DRI sources said Thursday’s seizure of heroin was one of the biggest in Bihar in recent times.
The DRI sleuths said the contraband was loaded in Guwahati in a truck bearing Uttar Pradesh registration number and was to be delivered to a drug smuggler in Lucknow.Three drug peddlers – Ali Ahmed, Sunil Kumar and Ram Kishore – were arrested from the truck.
Based on the information gathered from Ahmed, the Patna DRI team contacted their counterparts in Lucknow and the mastermind, Mohammad Nafees, in his mid-30s, was arrested from his house at Indira Nagar in Lucknow.
“The truck was intercepted around 2am on the bridge and its three occupants were rigorously quizzed. Ahmed spilled the beans about Nafees and provided his contact number and location in Lucknow,” said a senior DRI official, adding they immediately contacted their Lucknow counterparts and a team arrested Nafees. “Nafees is being interrogated in Lucknow,” he added.
DRI sources said Ahmed, the owner of the seized truck, was paid Rs 25,000 as rent and an additional Rs 1 lakh was paid as commission.
“Nafees, a real estate trader in Lucknow, also invests money in drug smuggling. The consignment seized in Supaul was perhaps smuggled from Myanmar through international border in Manipur,” sources said.