International Drug Racket: Four People, Including Two Teenage Girls, Arrested in Kolkata

Kolkata:  The Narcotics Control Bureau busted an international drug racket in Kolkata on Saturday arresting four persons, including two teenage girls. This was the second such haul from the city within a short interval.

Those arrested were identified as Aafreen Ali (19), Jewana Philips (19), Dibyendu Roy (32) and Prashant Basnet (22).

During interrogation, Aafreen, a class 10 student, revealed that the supplier of the LSD blots was her friend, Jewana. Based on her information, the NCB team raided Jewana’s residence at Gobinda Khatick Road in east Kolkata.

Jewana then revealed the names of her associates, Dibyendu and Prashant, who were later arrested from Dum Dum and Lake Town areas, respectively, and confessed to the crime.

Speaking to News18, NCB Kolkata Zonal Head Dilip Kumar Srivastava said, “Dibyendu was the main supplier of the banned drugs. He has revealed that he procured the drugs from a friend in Bengaluru and supplied them to many people/students in various clubs and private parties in Kolkata.”

“Dibyendu studies PG Diploma in Information Technology from Dayanand Sagar College in Bengaluru and Prashant Basnet is presently pursuing his class X from open schooling. Dibyendu was previously arrested in a similar case in Bengaluru. They used sophisticated cyber tools using the ‘Darknet’ and ‘Bitcoins’ to buy these items,” the officer said.

"This is an international drug racket because most of the consignment is coming from Malaysia and other neighbouring countries. Hope in future more people will be arrested in this connection" he added.

Recently, son of a well-known restaurateur and celebrity chef along with the son of a Kolkata-based industrialist were arrested by the NCB in connection with an international drug racket.

For the first time in 2015, NCB interdicted two syndicates involved in drug trafficking through the use of sophisticated cyber tools ‘Darknet’ and ‘Bitcoins’. Since then, cryptocurrencies, mainly Bitcoin, became a popular mode of illegal transactions by the mafias involved in arms, sex and drug racket.

According to experts, crime syndicates are increasingly depending on cryptocurrency as it allows illegal operations with complete secrecy of monetary transactions. Bitcoin and Darknet are difficult to track and probe agencies are finding it difficult to trace users who are carrying out such transactions for illegal activities.