Police, Military Intelligence jointly bust mephedrone smuggling racket, arrest four

Four suspects— Aneet Bipin Khade (19) of Hingane, Chaitanya Shivaji Sawle 27 of Kirkatwadi, Sarth Virendra Khare (19) of Sinhgad Road and Vishal Kamlesh Mehta (19)—have been arrested. A search has also been launched for Anush Jyotiba Mane who managed to give the police a slip. As per the probe, the suspects were smuggling and peddling Mephedrone across the city and were also suspected to have supplied drugs to people inside defence establishments.

Mephedrone, with various street names such Meow Meow, White Magic, M-Cat and Drone, is a synthetically manufactured stimulant of the amphetamine and cathinone category. Till the early years after 2010, the drug was not included in the contraband list under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. But multiple seizures of large quantities of the drug and rising instances of its consumption as a narcotic in big cities, prompted authorities to add it to the list in 2015.
Currently, Pune police are investigating a large scale mephedrone production and smuggling racket masterminded by narcotics cartel kingpin Lalit Patil.