HYDERABAD: The Prohibition and Excise department here on Saturday arrested three persons including a woman from Darjeeling of West Bengal for allegedly smuggling drugs from Visakhapatnam to Goa via Hyderabad.
The arrested persons have been identified as Mardi Shiva Shanker Reddy, 26, of Prashant Nagar in Kondapur, Gandham Manikanth, 26, of Jayaprakash Nagar in Balkampet and Shilpa Rai, 27, of Darjeeling in West Bengal.
The gang’s kingpin Manukonda Satyanarayana alias Sathi of Naidu Street in Visakhapatnam was absconding, said Excise Assistant Superintendent (Enforcement) N. Anjireddy.
Two motorcycles, four mobile phones and a digital electronic weighing machine were seized from the possession of the arrested persons. Anjireddy said, Satyanarayana, who was operating from Goa, engaged Shanker, Manikanth and Shilpa by paying commission to them.
Shilpa, who was presently residing at Fathima Colony in Tolichowki, used to bring marijuana and charas from Araku in Visakhapatnam following instructions of Satyanarayana. She would conceal the contraband in her luggage bag and travel in private buses.
After reaching Hyderabad, she would contact either Shanker or Manikanth. Shanker and Manikanth would keep the contraband in a hotel booked by Satyanarayana in Kondapur.
Satyanarayana will arrange a private bus ticket to Shilpa to bring her to Goa to hand over the contraband to him. While returning from Goa, she would bring Methylenedioxy-Methamphetamine (MDMA) and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) blots from Satyanarayana and give them to Shanker.
Manikanth and Shanker would sell MDMA and LSD to the needy customers in the city for Rs.5,000 per gram of MDMA and Rs.2,000 per LSD blot and send the money to Satyanarayana after taking Rs.500 as commission per blot or gram.
Shanker and Manikanth came to drop Shilpa at a bus station to send her to Goa when an excise team nabbed them, Anjireddy said.
