Banknote images for identification, coded messages: How Delhi’s cocaine cartel operated

Tushar was among seven people arrested over the past week when police made two drug busts — at a Mahipalpur godown and an empty shop in West Delhi’s Ramesh Nagar — and recovered 500 kg and 208 kg of cocaine worth Rs 7,000 in total.

At the shop, police found how the drugs were being smuggled — inside namkeen packets stored in cardboard boxes. Police claimed the drugs came from South America, primarily Colombia, via Dubai on cargo ships and were meant to be distributed across Delhi, Mumbai and Goa.

Lookout notices have now been issued against Baisoya and five others, and at least three more notices would be issued in the coming days, said a police officer on condition of anonymity.

Police also said the cartel had a unique way of communication — they confirmed each other’s identities by matching serial numbers of torn currency notes and kept all communication strictly coded via an app.

“The cartel members confirmed each other’s identities using serial numbers of currency notes as most of them didn’t know each other. A currency note would be torn, and a picture of each half would be given to the persons who are supposed to contact each other. Upon meeting, they would exchange the pictures to see if the serial numbers match — then, the drugs would change hands,” a police officer claimed.

Even Baisoya, police said, contacted the members through the Threema app. He communicated in code using musical connotations, they claimed. “There are chances even Baisoya isn’t aware of the real identity of the cartel members,” a police officer said.

How the case unfolded

It was on October 1 that the Special Cell raided a godown in Mahipalpur, leased by Tushar, and recovered the first batch of 560 kg cocaine. Tushar and three others — Auranzeb Siddiqui (23), Himanshu Kumar (27), and Bharat Jain (in his 40s) — were the first to be arrested.

On October 3, the fifth arrest was made — Jitendra Pal aka Jassi (45), who was allegedly Tushar’s India handler. “He had cocaine worth around 10 crore in his black Fortuner and was going to distribute it across Punjab. He was going to come to Delhi and go to London on October 12. Learning of Tushar’s arrest, he left the car in Amritsar and tried to flee,” a police officer had claimed.

Then on October 10, police recovered the second 208 kg consignment in Ramesh Nagar. This consignment, police said, was handled by UK resident Savinder Singh — a lookout notice was issued against him too.

He was in Delhi for around a month. He received the consignment from two accused — A. Safi and Mohammad Akhlaq — dropped it at the shop and fled to London on Sunday, police said.

According to police sources, Safi was arrested on Sunday while Akhlaq was arrested on Tuesday. Safi, who hailed from Chennai, works as a butcher and is a second-hand car dealer while Akhlaq used to sell vegetables wholesale and was involved in small-time brokerage work, said police.

Police claimed it was Safi, who came in touch with the people in the cartel through his car dealership business, who brought the consignment to Uttar Pradesh where he met Akhlaq.

Akhlaq then brought it to Delhi from Hapur in his vehicle which had a GPS attached to it, they said. Savinder used the same vehicle to make the drop, they claimed.
A police officer claimed Baisoya had tasked Jassi and Savinder to handle the two consignments and distribute them to different distributors in Delhi-NCR. But both of them didn’t know each other before coming to Delhi, he claimed.