In a major drug bust, excise officials apprehended four youths on charge of smuggling 95 kg of ganja to the city on Sunday.
A team led by Assistant Excise Commissioner T. Anikumar, who heads the State Excise Enforcement Squad, nabbed a gang comprising Ratheesh R., alias Chokkan, 36, of Karinkadamugal near Thiruvallam; Ratheesh S.R., 42, of Menilam near Thiruvallam; Vishnu, alias Bolero Vishnu, 31, of Kalliyoor; and Akhil, alias Bolt, 25, of Neyyattinkara at Kannettumukku near Thycaud.
The first three accused are suspected to have smuggled the contraband from Vijayawada in 46 packets. They had taken Vishnu’s wife and three children along with them to Vijayawada to evade suspicion. Akhil allegedly reached the spot in the city to collect the consignment.
The gang allegedly rented the vehicle from a Sasthamangalam native on May 1 claiming that they were headed for Kanyakumari for a leisure trip. Unknown to them, the vehicle owner kept track of their movements through a GPS-tracking system in the car. Sensing something amiss when the vehicle approached Andhra Pradesh, nearly 1,600 kilometres away, he alerted the Excise department.
The excise team trailed the vehicle as soon as they reached the inter-State border at Amaravila. While they rounded up the gang as soon as they reached Kannettumukku, Vishnu’s wife and children managed to escape in another vehicle. Some of those caught are suspected to be involved in a ganja peddling racket at Manaveeyam Veedhi and other spots in the city.
The law enforcers suspect the gang could have smuggled the huge quantity of ganja for supply among youngsters in the vicinity of educational institutions prior to their reopening next month.
