The police officers probing the ephedrine drug racket case have confirmed that the peddlers are hand-in-glove with the Hyderabad-based courier firm, DST Courier.
The officers who investigated the role of the staff of the courier company said a few international courier firms had colluded with the smugglers and despatched ephedrine to Australia.
“We are trying to find out if other drugs too are ferried, if so to which countries, and since how long the racket is going on,” a police officer said.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Kanthi Rana Tata said based on the confession of Kuppuswamy Arunachalam Venkatesh of Chennai, who was arrested earlier, the police had arrested DST Courier’s Hyderabad branch manager Y. Shyam Sunder, and two other employees T. Srinivas and K. Praveen Varma.
Investigation revealed that the courier boy, G. Teja, of Vijayawada, who was arrested by the Customs and Central Excise officials of Bengaluru Airport, and the three courier company employees were allegedly hand-in-glove in the racket.
“We will send the mobile phones of the accused to the Forensic Science Laboratory to retrieve the call data and verify their bank transactions,” an investigation officer said.
In another development, the Kurnool police picked up three persons on charge of smuggling drugs from Bengaluru to Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, the police have stepped up vigil on the activities of courier companies, transport operators and a few private buses in the wake of the drug racket having links with Vijayawada.
