10, busted an international drug racket involved in sending Methaqualone
aka Quaaludes, abroad.
A 71-year-old South African national, Jan Harm Herbst and his Nigerian associate Martin, were
intercepted at the domestic airport.
Herbst was to board a flight to
Bengaluru.
14kg of Methaqualone commonly called disco biscuits were seized from him.
This is the first such seizure this year, of the psychotropic
substance, used to make medicines in India. Sources said Methaqualone is in demand in Europe and the US. NCB laid
a trap at a hotel based on a tip-off.
“We arrested Jan Harm Herbst, 71,
and Nigerian national Martin from IGI airport when the latter was about
to board a flight to Bengaluru,” said Rajender Pal Singh, Deputy
Director General (north).
NCB had zeroed down upon the septuagenarian during his stay in a Delhi
hotel and nabbed him at the airport when he was to fly out of India.
The accused has smuggled drugs six times in the past.
Earlier, the police had arrested another South African in Mumbai with
the drug. He told the police that he had stayed at a hotel in Karol
Bagh. When NCB sleuths went to the hotel to verify his claims, they
found that he had stayed there from March 16 to April 3.
The police also found that another South African national had been
staying in the same hotel since March 29. This man, Jan Harm Herbst, was
put on surveillance and soon the cops came to know that he was going to
take a consignment of drugs to South Africa.
Herbst and a Martin were
intercepted at the domestic airport. Herbst was to board a flight to
Bengaluru.
When the sleuths searched his luggage, they found Methaqualone wrapped
in polythene and carbon paper concealed between T-shirts. Herbst was to
take an Etihad Airways flight from Bengaluru to Chennai from where he
would have flown to Abu Dhabi and finally to Johannesburg,” said NCB
deputy director general Ravinder Pa.
During interrogation, Herbst revealed that he had come to India eight
times and ferried drugs in six of those trips. He works for a Nigerian
drug cartel operating between India and South Africa.
Martin told the
cops that he has been supplying the drug for several years. He has been
staying in India since 2007. He disclosed that he had supplied the drug
to Victior, the South African arrested in Mumbai. His passport and visa
have expired.
Source: Times Of India
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