HYDERABAD: Despite nabbing international peddler Tony, the fact that he was sent to judicial remand and not to police custody has resulted in a long wait for the Hyderabad police to trace his shipments. A city court will hear the petition filed by the police seeking custody of Tony on Thursday. On Tuesday too, the court put off its orders on a petition by the Hyderabad police for custody, after hearing arguments from both the prosecution and defense.
According to the source, the city police have sought custody of Tony for at least a week. A police officer said: “Once we get custody of Tony, we can gather a lot of information about his network from him. He was sending his agents to supply drugs in the city and we can obtain the names of his customers from him.”
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Tony was procuring psychotropic substances in bulk quantities from another Nigerian named ‘Star Boy’ whose real name and whereabouts remain a secret. The officer added, “Interrogation will help us to understand from where in Nigeria Tony had acquired the drugs and his payment methods and gateways used for transactions.”
The officer hoped that getting Tony’s custody will answer a lot of unanswered questions. In various drugs-related arrests made by the police of all the three commissionerates, the information on the source and destination of drugs, even after seizing phones from the instance of the offenders and transporters involved, has been hard to come by.
In Tony’s case, Hyderabad Police Commissioner CV Anand had said that the mobile phone of Tony was scanned but he had erased all information on WhatsApp. However, the WhatsApp messages could be retrieved from the phone of Tony’s prime agent Imran.
It is unclear if the police in the previous cases were unable to scan the mobile phones of the peddlers. Meanwhile, four persons suspected to be regular customers of Tony -- Ashok Jain, Soma Sashikanth, Gajendra Prasad and Sanjay -- are still to be arrested, according to police sources.
Accused had erased data from phone
In the case of top drugs smuggler Tony, Hyderabad Police Commissioner CV Anand had said that the mobile phone of Tony was scanned but he had erased all information on WhatsApp. However, the WhatsApp messages could be retrieved from the phone of Tony’s prime agent Imran.