UK cop held in heroin racket

Interestingly, Mubarak Abdul Rahman Shabir is a constable attached toLancashire Police in Great Britain. He and his uncle Talab Suleman Bheganiare believed to have been the brain behind the drug racket.

According to NCB Deputy Director General Davendra Dutt, while Shabir hadbeen misusing his position as a policemen, Bhegani had been financing thetransactions.

“The officers have seized incriminating documents from the duo to provetheir involvement in the case,” said Dutt.

The seizures were effected after the NCB sleuths were tipped off about theracket sometime in early 1998. Shabir’s movements were kept undersurveillance for the last few months until he walked into the trap on Fridayafternoon.

According to NCB sources, the duo were intercepted at CSI airport when theywere about to board Emirates flight EK 505 at departure module II. A searchof the luggage revealed that 5.6 kilograms of brown powder was concealed inthe false bottom of the suitcase.

“Large quantity of the drugs were cleverly stashed in the top cover of theluggage. The stuff was glued to the suitcase and enveloped with carbon paperand dry fish to avoid detection by Z-ray and sniffer dogs,” added NCB ZonalDirector Ajay Ubale.

Interrogations of the two suspects revealed the names of other threeassociates, who were later arrested from an apartment at Mahim. The otherthree men have been identified as Zainul Abadin, Yakub Ibrahim Patel andFarook Qureshi.

All the five accused are to be tried in India and faces charges underNarcotic Acts.

Sources disclosed that Abadin had procured the heroin from the Indore drugmafia, which is very active in the Mandsaur and the adjoining areas ofIndore. The accused is a resident of Ratlam, which is considered a transitpoint for drugs from Madhya Pradesh, sources added.

Investigations have revealed that the two key suspects entered the countryon February 8 and proceeded to their native place in Kerala. During thesojourn they managed to obtain Indian currency, which was later used toprocure the drugs.

The traffickers told investigators that they had been involved in the racketfor the last two years and was able to slip past the law enforcementagencies by flashing Shabir’s police identity.

Explaining the modus operandi, Ubale said Shabir and Bhegani had planned tobreak the journey at Dubai and then take a connecting flight a little later.The idea was to fly into Great Britain from a sterile place in the Gulf toavoid detection, he added.

This is the third haul in the last three months in which 415 kilograms ofheroin has been seized. NCB officers have confiscated more than 825kilograms during last year.