Apple retailer runs a Pablo Escobar-style drug operation in Shimla, eluding police for years

Shimla:

The orders for the drug were generated via WhatsApp, deliveries were arranged and the delivery was carried out; but the deliverer and the final recipient never saw each other. In fact, people in the demand and supply chain acted as independent entities.

Shahi Mahatma alias Shashi Negi, an apple trader in the upper Shimla region, ran an interstate 'chitta' (adulterated heroin) smuggling racket for five to six years, evading law enforcement agencies by ensuring the dots were always so far apart lay that they could not be connected to each other to reach him. Negi remained the only common link between the demand and supply chains in his “chitta”.

But he was out of luck on September 20, a day after Shimla police made the year's biggest drug haul – 465 grams of 'chitta' from Kharapathar.

“Links of accused Mudasir Ahmed Mochi, a resident of Bhatpura village in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir (who was arrested on September 19) were established with Shahi Mahatma alias Shashi Negi and the leader was arrested,” SP Shimla Sanjeev said Kumar Gandhi PTI on Saturday.

Mr Gandhi said Negi and his 40 associates supplied drugs in Rohru, Jubbal-Kotkhai and Theog areas of Upper Shimla under the guise of his apple business and he had links with Nigerian drug gangs in New Delhi, gangs in Haryana and people in Kashmir.

Explaining the modus operandi of Negi's gang, Mr Gandhi said he ensured that the drugs supplied changed hands four times before reaching their destination. He had hired various groups of independent individuals to generate demand, deliver drugs, and accept payments.

Gandhi said he never came into direct contact with any of the partners.

The demand for drugs was generated in WhatsApp groups and after verifying the drug user, it was sent to Negi, who had another team to deliver the drugs.

Even at the time of final handover, the delivery person would keep the medicine at an isolated place and share a video with the buyer who would collect it from there, Mr. Gandhi said.

The money reached Negi's Dhan Laxmi account in Solan after traveling through various bank accounts, police said. And the people whose accounts were used in these transactions never knew they were drug money.

A cash flow of Rs 2.5 million to Rs 3 million was found in the bank accounts of the accused in the last 15 months, police said.

Before Negi's arrest, police had already registered five FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act against nine people involved in the drug-related crime, police said, adding that 25 members of the gang have been arrested so far.

The social integrated intelligence network system, which involved local residents as informants, helped in registering 650 cases and arresting 1,100 drug peddlers, including 205 inter-state traffickers, in Shimla district in the last 18 months, Mr. Gandhi said.

To assess the impact, the police will increase patrols and the reach of social networks. Educational institutions and large public places would be monitored to prevent such drug traffickers, he added.