Team Herald
PANJIM: Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has claimed to have busted a major network of drug peddlers, as multiple teams are probing drug links to Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
A shack owner in Goa, Hemant Shah alias Maharaj, a Nigerian involved in the Porvorim violence and a Congo national have been taken into custody following a series of raids across various parts of Goa spanning over two days.
NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede, in Goa to supervise the raids said that NCB Sub Zonal Unit Goa, along with an operational team of NCB Mumbai, conducted searches on March 7-8 at Mazal Wado, Assagao where they succeeded in recovering 41 blots of LSD (commercial quantity), charas 28 grams, cocaine 22 grams, Ganja 1.100 kg, 160 grams of white powder believed to be narcotics drugs/psychotropic substance, 500 grams blue crystal substance suspected to be psychotropic substance and an amount of Rs 10,000.
In this connection, Ugochukwu Solomon Ubabuko, a Nigerian national and John Infinity alias David from Congo were apprehended and are being interrogated. “During follow-up action, NCB team searched premises of one Prasad Walke and recovered LSD blots
(commercial quantity) on March 8,” the officer added. While seizure formalities were underway, the NCB teams were simultaneously looking for Walke and his other associates, all of whom are on the run.
Walke, had earlier been booked by NCB Goa in 2018 for trafficking of LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and ganja, whereas, Ubabuko is reportedly involved in the violence at Porvorim when he along with several Nigerian nationals had blocked the Porvorim NH and clashed with the police. Three years later in August 2016, he, along with six Nigerians, was arrested by Hyderabad police in another drug racket.
In a separate operation, on March 7, 2021, the NCB Mumbai team succeeded in apprehending Hemant Shah alias Maharaj from Miramar. “Hemant had already been named by accused Anuj Keswani and Regal Mahakaal, in NCB Mumbai crime No. 16/2020 as supplier of LSD and charas. Hemant is native of Madhya Pradesh and running a shack Buena Vida in Morjim for past several years. After locating Hemant in Miramar, his premises were raided in the late evening which resulted in recovery of 15 blots of LSD (commercial quantity) and charas 30 grams,” Wankhede further said.
Sources told Herald that Keswani, on his arrest by NCB Mumbai in September 2020 had allegedly supplied drugs to Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik through one Kaizan. He had also disclosed that Hemant used to supply charas and LSD to him and this is how the drugs also reached some in the Bollywood industry.
Meanwhile, the value of drugs is not known as the source said, “There is no rate in the illegal market.”
