2020 Mephedrone bust: Trial begins against 19 accused, drug cartel kingpin Lalit Patil

Special Public Prosecutor for the case advocate Shishir Hiray said, “The court had framed charges against 20 accused in the case in October this year. All the accused have pleaded not guilty. Of the 20 accused who stand trial, eight are out on bail while 12 are still in prison. As the trial in the case began today, the prosecution began the examination-in-chief of the complainant police officer in the case Shakir Jineri.”

The investigation into the case had revealed that Tushar Kale, a Borivali resident with alleged links to Chhota Rajan gang, had come in contact with Nigerian national Zuby Odoka, when the two were incarcerated in Kolhapur Central Prison. The duo had started putting together their team for the cartel. After their release on bail, they managed to pick up the entire process of manufacturing Mephedrone from a man from Mumbai prison when he was brought for a court proceeding.

Another key accused in the case, Rakesh Khaniwadekar alias Rocky, wanted by several drug enforcement entities in India, had subsequently joined the racket. He had helped Kale and others purchase a farmhouse where they synthesised Mephedrone for the first time. But with an unsatisfactory quality of the product, they decided to rope in a “master of the art” identified as Arvindkumar Lohare, a postgraduate degree holder in organic chemistry, who was already facing charges of manufacturing drugs in a case registered in Nashik.

Lohare is alleged to have held multiple training sessions for the members of the cartel including some at a farmhouse in Karjat area in early 2019. The cartel initially synthesised their drugs at two closed chemical factories in an industrial cluster in Mahad taluka in Raigad district, where an estimated 60 to 70 kgs of Mephedrone was manufactured. Later the cartel moved their manufacturing base to an ailing chemical factory in Ranjangaon industrial area in Pune. With the help of some locals and people who used to work at this unit here, a Mephedrone manufacturing line was set up and an estimated 132 kgs of the drug was synthesised. Of this, 112 kgs was sold by the racket led by Kale and Khaniwadekar through Zuby. It was the remaining 20 kgs of this batch that was seized from five persons arrested by Pimpri Chinchwad police at Chakan in October 2020 in their raid at Dhaba. All the above mentioned accused are among the 20 who stand trial in the case.

Probe revealed that Patil had not only procured and moved the drugs from this cartel but received Rs 65 lakh from four of the suspects arrested in the case before him to arrange lawyers for them and to try and strike deals with officials. Police had seized Rs 25 lakh in cash from Patil after his arrest in December 2020.

This 2020 case had found its way to headlines again in October 2023 when Patil had escaped from Sassoon General Hospital in Pune, where he had come for treatment from Yerawada Prison earlier in June 2023. It also came to light that Patil had continued to operate his drugs cartel from the hospital ward using two high-end iPhones. Patil, who was admitted to the prisoners’ ward at Sassoon General Hospital, escaped on the evening of October 2, 2023 — a day before his scheduled hernia surgery. He was rearrested by the Mumbai police on October 17 from a village near Bengaluru. A police probe has revealed that since his arrest in December 2020, Patil, who was lodged in Yerawada prison, managed to spend 16 months in the Sassoon hospital ward, citing various medical reasons.