Top Hyderabad businessman, rich kids arrested for cocaine abuse

HYDERABAD: Sending a stern warning to drug consumers in the city, police have arrested nine persons, including seven cocaine consumers and a Mumbai-based Nigerian peddler.
Majority of the arrested consumers belong to well-to-do families and one of them, who runs a Rs 1,000 crore business, reportedly procured drugs from the supplier 30 times during the past few years.
In the past, various law enforcement agencies had arrested drug consumers, so far Hyderabad police have mainly focused on peddlers. However, the Task Force sleuths went beyond the regular path and arrested seven drug consumers and two of their employees. "We have discussed with legal experts, psychologists and sociologists about the narcotics issue and decided to arrest even the consumers," Hyderabad police commissioner CV Anand said.
Peddler stayed in India even after visa, passport expired
By analysing phone records of Mumbai-based Nigerian peddler Tony, we zeroed in on 13 names from the city and nine of them have been arrested. All the arrested consumers are from rich families," Anand added.
Before arresting the consumers, a North Zone Task Force team, led by inspector K Nageshwar Rao, spent over 10 days in Mumbai and Pune to zero in on their target, Chukwu Ogbonna David alias Tony Abia Marsha, 37, at a resort in Pune. Tony came to India in 2013 and, even after his visa and passport expired, continued to stay in Mumbai doing garments export business.
A few years ago, he switched to drug peddling and began selling cocaine to customers in Mumbai, Goa and Hyderabad through his trusted lieutenants. Police arrested some of Tony's associates recently and, based on the information given by them, arrested him. "After the arrest of his associates, Tony removed all details of drug sale activity from his phones and shifted the location of his stay. Our team tracked him closely during this pandemic period and managed to arrest him," Anand said.
Tony confessed that he obtains cocaine from Nigeria-based peddler, Star Boy, through the sea route. From the two seized phones of Tony, city police had identified 13 persons in Hyderabad keeping in touch with him for cocaine and on Wednesday night arrested nine of them, including, Niranjan Kumar Jain, 39, a contractor from Himayatnagar, his office boy G Subba Rao, 27, Shashwat Jain, 36, a construction businessman, Dhandu Surya Sumanth Reddy, 39, a contractor, Thamminedi Sagar, 33, a private worker, all three from Banjara Hills, Yagyan and Agarwal, 34, a spices businessman from Gowlipura, Bandi Bhargav, 31, a businessman from Erragadda, Venkat Chalasani, 26, a businessman from Jubilee Hills, and his office boy A Srikanth of Budvel.
"Among the customers, Niranjan Kumar Jain, runs about Rs 1,000 crore business and he procured drugs about 30 times from Tony in past few years. We have to verify whether it was only for consumption or for sale. Other arrested are also from well-to-do families," the commissioner said.