Punjab Police arrest drug smuggler linked to Pakistan, seize 15 kg heroin

Posted on by Vividh Bharathi

Chandigarh, March 31 (IANS) Striking yet another major blow to the cross-border drug smuggling, Punjab Police have arrested a drug smuggler linked to Pakistan and US-based drug syndicates and recovered 15 kg heroin from his possession, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said here on Monday.

The accused has been identified as Harshpreet Singh, a resident of Amritsar.

Apart from recovering the heroin haul, police teams have also impounded a scooter being used by the accused for drug smuggling.

The development came a day after Tarn Taran police dismantled a drug trafficking cartel with the arrest of two drug smugglers and recovered 6 kg of heroin from their possession.

DGP Yadav said preliminary investigation has revealed that the drug consignment is linked to a smuggling network operated by US-based smuggler Gurnam Kallowal, who is in link with Pakistan-based drug trafficker identified as Pahalwan.

The accused was using drones to drop the drug consignment from across the border, he added.

He said the probe has also revealed that the arrested accused Harshpreet Singh was retrieving narcotic consignments near the border area to further deliver them to local drug peddlers and was sending payments of drug proceeds through hawala channels on the instructions of his US-based handler.

The DGP said further investigations are underway to establish backward and forward linkages in this case to uncover the whole network. Sharing operation details, Senior Superintendent of Police, Tarn Taran, Abhimanyu Rana said that following a tip-off about the smuggling activities of the accused Harshpreet Singh, police teams of the CIA under supervision of Superintendent of Police, Investigation, Ajay Raj, and DSPs Atul Soni and Gurinder Pal Nagra launched an intelligence-based operation and arrested the accused from the Rakh Sarai Amanat Khan area, when he was going to deliver the drug consignment to someone on his scooter.

The SSP said efforts are being made to uncover the entire network of suppliers, dealers, and buyers, as well as to ascertain the total quantity of drugs received by the arrested accused. More arrests and recoveries are likely in the coming days, he added.

–IANS

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