Solving Crime: ‘Catching a ghost’ — How a Mangaluru cop posed as a buyer for 3 months and crushed a drug cartel

Yet it all began with a single piece of ground intelligence—followed by months of painstaking police work marked by persistence, patience, and the building of a watertight case with call detail records, witness statements, and bank transactions.

A car with drugs

The year was 2022. With Assembly elections in Karnataka a year away, the police in communally sensitive Mangaluru, the headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district, were on alert for flare-ups, underworld activities, drug peddlers, and the sand mafia.

On June 14, 2022, Mahesh Prasad, who was an inspector with the City Crime Branch (CCB) then, and his team received a tip-off that a four-member gang was travelling towards Mangaluru in a Maruti Ritz Car with drugs.

“Before this, the CCB had information that synthetic drugs were being supplied from Bengaluru to Mangaluru, and that a man named Mohammed Rameez, who hails from Kerala, was in touch with students here. We had kept an eye on his movements for more than a month,” Prasad recalled.

The next morning, the police flagged the vehicle near Ullal.  There were four people inside the car: Rameez, 24; Moideen Rasheed, 24; Abdul Ravoof, 35; and Sabitha, 25, who hailed from Tamil Nadu and was staying in Madivala, Bengaluru.

Medical tests later confirmed that the accused had consumed drugs. (Express photo)

All the men hailed from Kerala, and Sabitha, a buyer, became their trump card to slip past police checks. “Usually, if there is a woman in the car, the police assume it’s a family travelling and let the vehicle go without inspection. She had befriended Rameez because of MDMA,” a police officer recalled.

The police allegedly seized MDMA worth ₹6 lakh along with six mobile phones, five glass tubes, a digital weighing scale, and the car. Medical tests later confirmed that the accused had consumed drugs.

While Rameez, who had earlier been booked for drug possession in 2021, was out on bail just six months before his arrest in this case, Ravoof already faced charges related to drugs and illegal arms dating back to 2018.

Later, the police also arrested car owner V M Imthiyaz Ahmed, 35, a resident of Bantwal.

What the investigation revealed

Prasad and Police Sub-Inspector Pradeep T R, who led the investigation, took the accused into police custody. “We had information that Rameez was the one who was supplying drugs to the students. But we needed to know from where they had procured the narcotics. That was a challenge for us,” Prasad recalled.

When the police traced the digital payments and frequent contacts of the accused, the trail led them to Lual Daniel Justin Boulo, 25, a South Sudan national staying in Varthur, Bengaluru.

While the police had evidence that Boulo was the supplier, it was not easy to track him. “Even Rameez and the others had not seen him. He frequently changed mobile numbers and never met them in person to hand over the drugs. Rameez used to transfer money to him, and Boulo used to ask them to go to a place to collect the package from a spot where he had already placed it,” Prasad said.

The police then decided to contact Boulo, posing as customers. “Boulo never met people, and it was hard to track his mobile phone as he used to switch it off and change SIM cards. We had to ensure that he did not suspect anything, as even a small doubt could have ruined the entire operation,” an officer who was part of the team said.

For more than three months, a police constable spoke to Boulo and tried to gain his trust. Once Boulo was convinced that he was dealing with a ‘genuine’ client, he suggested a place to collect the package. Unknown to him, a police team in Bengaluru was already watching the location. On September 20, 2022, three months after the initial arrests, the police caught Boulo when he arrived to drop the consignment.

Evidence in place and a court verdict

The case was later handed over to the Mangaluru CEN police station, where Police Inspector Satish M P led the investigation. Besides witness statements, banking records proved crucial to the prosecution’s case. Investigators found eight electronic fund transfers from Rameez’s Federal Bank account to Boulo’s State Bank of India account between January and June 2022, corresponding to the alleged drug purchases. A Call Detail Record (CDR) analysis revealed extensive communication between Rameez and the three other accused in the days preceding their arrest, establishing the distribution network.

On December 6 last year, the principal district and sessions court in Mangaluru convicted Boulo to 12 years of rigorous imprisonment, Ramees to 14 years, Rasheed to 12 years, Ravoof to 13 years and Sabitha to 12 years. The accused were convicted under sections 21 (c) (contravention in relation to manufactured drugs and preparations) and 27 (b) (consumption of narcotics or psychotropic substances) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

The judge said in the order: “The evidence placed on record by the prosecution is clear, cogent, convincing, believable and trustworthy. The prosecution proved its case beyond all reasonable doubts that the Accused Nos.1 to 5 have committed offence punishable under Sec. 21(c) and 27(b) of NDPS Act.”

The court also acquitted car owner Imthiyaz, noting the prosecution had failed to prove that he had knowingly allowed his vehicle to be used for drug transportation. Ahmed claimed he had rented the car to one Azad C H for a wedding, and produced a wedding invitation as evidence. However, the court ordered the confiscation of the vehicle as contraband was found in it.

This was among the major NDPS cases in the state where the court convicted drug peddlers and imposed sentences of more than 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.

“Usually, the witnesses turn hostile, but we did not allow that to happen. There was sufficient material evidence, and the digital payments connected the dots. The case hearings were monitored, and it ended in a conviction,” Satish explained.

Prasad, currently serving as a police inspector at Manipal police station in Udupi district, believes the arrests dealt a blow to the Bengaluru-Mangaluru drug nexus. “Earlier, hydro ganja used to come from Kerala…after a few arrests, it stopped. Later, synthetic drugs were smuggled from Goa, but that nexus was broken. Now, with this conviction, drug peddlers from Bengaluru will not have the courage to come to Mangaluru for their business,” he said, with confidence.