Rs 7,000 crore cocaine haul, Dubai hideout, Delhi network: Story of Virender Baisoya

But the banquet hall kept orbiting around one man. Aakash’s father, Virender Singh Baisoya, known as Viru, was 50, tall and imposing. He had flown in from Dubai for his son’s wedding, and he did not intend to stay long.

“After the celebrations, he left the country again,” recalls a senior officer with the Special Cell of Delhi Police.

It would be the last time Delhi police investigators saw him in the national capital.

Eight months later, Baisoya’s name surfaced in what became one of Delhi’s biggest narcotics cases. Police alleged he was the kingpin of a cocaine network with links to South America and Thailand. The Special Cell seized more than Rs 7,000 crore worth of cocaine from a West Delhi godown — the largest drug haul in the Capital’s history.

But the scale of the seizure was only part of what intrigued Delhi police.

Police said they had uncovered a sophisticated, layered network unlike those previously seen in Delhi, involving pharmaceutical professionals and intermediaries who kept its top operators out of sight.

For months, Baisoya remained one of them. “We have been waiting to arrest and question Baisoya. He remained beyond our reach,” a senior official said.

Then, last week, that wait appeared to be coming to an end after Home Minister Amit Shah posted on X. “Creating a new milestone in the policy of zero tolerance against narcotics, the NCB secured the return of fugitive drug kingpin Virender Singh Basoya from the UAE,” his post read.

For the Delhi Police officers, who had nearly for two years been reconstructing what they believe was an industrial-scale supply chain, the announcement raised an immediate question: Would they finally get the chance to question the man they consider its most important missing link?

Fourteen people have been arrested in the Delhi case. Baisoya is not one of them – at least, not yet. “We have arrested the middlemen, employees and handlers. However, we still have not questioned the most crucial link – Virender Singh Baisoya,” another senior police official said.

And that, for Delhi Police, is what makes Baisoya’s return more consequential than the arrest of just another fugitive.

The Village: Pilanji

Pilanji is a village the city has slowly surrounded.

It is a Gujjar settlement, home to one of the National Capital Region’s prominent land-owning communities. Its lanes remain narrow. Cows and buffaloes move alongside Royal Enfields and SUVs. On a humid August afternoon, hookahs still smoulder in the shade of the porches.

This was where Baisoya grew up. “His family was never short of money. Land and houses in and around Pilanji brought in a steady income,” says an eighty-year-old neighbour of the family.

But Baisoya, they say, was not content to live on it. “He bought some land or flats…I don’t exactly remember…around Noida as well. He got rent from there also,” the eighty-year-old says.

His family home still stands in Pilanji: a four-storey grey building that is more polished than many of the houses around it. Long balconies run along each floor, their railings made of glass. At the front are tall black iron gates.
The bell goes unanswered.

Relatives say the house is occupied. “His mother, who is around 70-years-old, lives here, along with his wife, and his brother Ravinder’s family. He also did some contractual work. I heard he got a contract to make a hospital in Jammu last year,” says Ankit, Baisoya’s nephew.

In Pilanji, there is no single account of the man Baisoya was before investigators began describing him as an alleged kingpin. Depending on whom you ask, he was a contractor, a property dealer, and a businessman.
The Delhi Police have another chronology.

The first border

According to investigators, Baisoya’s journey into alleged illicit trade began not with cocaine, but with cigarettes.
Delhi Police say he was allegedly involved in smuggling imported cigarettes from Dubai into India.

“The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) registered two cases against him, and he was declared a proclaimed offender — meaning an accused on the run,” a senior police officer said.

Baisoya had studied through Class 12 and later enrolled in a Delhi University college, but did not complete his studies.

“He initially opened a courier company and later started a handloom business. He also ventured into the construction business, following which he lived in Jammu for some time. However, due to losses in the construction business, he had to return to Delhi,” the police officer said.

Later, Baisoya moved to the UK, where he met Sandeep Dhunay, 42, a British national of Indian origin with roots in Patna. The relationship, according to police, marked a turn.

“The two allegedly started trafficking in narcotics,” the police officer said.

For Indian-origin fugitives and smugglers, investigators say, Britain has long offered an attractive place to settle and operate, particularly in and around London.

“The country’s ability to provide creative money laundering schemes is revered. Indian-origin smugglers like Virender ‘Dave’ Sharma, Akbar Shamji, and even gangster Kapil Sangwan have prospered in the country,” the senior officer said.

Baisoya’s movements, meanwhile, were becoming increasingly difficult to follow. While he was in Gurgaon for his son’s wedding, Pune City Police received a tip that a consignment of mephedrone was headed for the city, a senior police officer said.

“Soon, Baisoya left for the UAE, another favourite among drug traffickers of the highest ilk,” the officer said. “Criminals or smugglers like Baisoya, who are aware that security agencies are searching for them, prefer to remain underground once they arrive in foreign countries.”

Back in India, the investigation was beginning to acquire a different scale.

Pune Police allegedly seized 500 grams of mephedrone during an operation in February 2024.
“They found Baisoya linked to it. The probe was expanded to trace the wider network, leading to follow-up recoveries of around 867 kg of mephedrone from Pune and 970 kg from Delhi,” an officer said. The case was subsequently transferred to the NCB’s Mumbai Zonal Unit.

Cocaine comes to Delhi

Delhi Police officials said cocaine first surfaced in Delhi around 1996 and gained a wider market in the early 2000s. Foreigners staying in Paharganj hotels were among the early suppliers, selling it for Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 a gram.
As demand grew, smugglers from African countries took over much of the trade, a senior police official said. Couriers, some travelling on medical visas, rented homes in South Delhi neighbourhoods such as Chhattarpur, where cocaine was concealed, mixed and sold through local networks.

Social media later allowed suppliers and handlers to coordinate across borders without meeting in person.
“But the trade remained fragmented. It was never industrial scale,” the officer said.

That changed in October 2024.

On October 1, the Special Cell raided a warehouse in Mahipalpur leased by Tushar Goel, the son of a publisher, and seized 562 kg of cocaine and 40 kg of hydroponic marijuana.

Nine days later, another 208 kg of cocaine was recovered from a shop in Ramesh Nagar. “After this recovery, the probe revealed that the drug belonged to a Gujarat based company named Pharma Solutions Services,” an officer said.

The trail led investigators to Ankleshwar, in Gujarat. There, police recovered another 518 kg of cocaine, worth about Rs 5,000 crore, from a firm in the Ankleshwar GIDC, officers said.

The drugs, investigators said, had travelled a long way before reaching Gujarat.

“Sourced from Colombia and Peru, the drugs reached Gujarat from Dubai, using multiple sea routes. They were sorted and mixed in the factory before being dispatched to Delhi-NCR,” the officer said.

Inside the Avakar factory, police allegedly found an industrial-scale operation. “Machinery used to package medicines and syrups in bulk was allegedly being used to mix and pack cocaine,” the official said.

The cocaine did not move through Delhi in gram-sized packets. “It travelled as cargo belonging to multinational companies as medical consignments. On paper, they were being transferred to a shell pharma company,” the official said.

“The fake company hired employees on the pretext of working for a pharma brand – many of them MBA graduates – and used them to arrange storage in NCR. The company’s name was also used to hire vehicles from transporters in Delhi to move the consignment from one godown to another,” the official said. What investigators encountered in 2024, in other words, was not simply a larger shipment of cocaine. “It was a very different operation. Drugs moved across continents through legitimate businesses and people who appeared to be ordinary corporate employees, using regular trade infrastructure to bring narcotics into Delhi,” the senior police official said.

Delhi Police’s Wait

For more than two years, Delhi Police had been unable to bring Baisoya back to India.

But while he remained out of reach, investigators say they went after the network around him. Through a series of arrests, police picked apart what they describe as the cartel’s network of middlemen, employees and handlers. Officers point to seizure data as evidence that the crackdown disrupted its operations.

In 2024, authorities seized 1,293.298 kg of cocaine in cases registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. In 2025, that figure fell to 12.64 kg. In the first six months of 2026, authorities seized 6.6 kg.
“The numbers clearly show that these arrests have made an impact and the network’s operations have been disrupted,” an officer said.

Baisoya, however, remained beyond their reach. Delhi Police first secured a non-bailable warrant against him and later sought an Interpol Red Corner Notice. The Special Cell also sent letters rogatory — formal requests for legal assistance — to authorities in Dubai.

Still, tracking him proved difficult.

“He was seen once in Dubai at that time, and then he just disappeared,” said a police officer who was part of the team that tracked Baisoya. “We had information that he was travelling around the Middle East, but until June this year, we had very little information about his movements.”

“For the last two years, we wanted to arrest him because we wanted to curb the sale of cocaine and other high-end drugs in Delhi,” the officer said. “Now, after his arrest, questioning him is important because he was not simply an ordinary member of the network. He was like the executive head of this cartel.”

“Although his handlers, including Sandeep Dhunay, were based in Dubai and Pakistan, Baisoya was their link to the capital’s market,”  the officer said.

His strength, investigators believe, was his connection to Delhi. “His network and social connections in the city were very strong,” the officer said.  For Delhi Police, that is why his return matters.