Five drug smugglers held in Punjab, over 8 kg heroin seized

Chandigarh, Sep 8 (PTI) Punjab Police on Monday said it has busted a heroin trafficking cartel with the arrest of the five drug smugglers and recovered 8.1kg heroin from their possession.

The accused have been identified as notorious drug smuggler Soni Singh alias Soni and his four associates Gursewak Singh, Vishaldeep Singh alias Gola, Gurpreet Singh and Arshdeep Singh, all residents of Ajnala in Amritsar, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here.

He said the syndicate was operating from Pakistan and drones were being used to deliver large consignments of heroin into Indian territory.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the syndicate used hotels as contraband dumps to circulate consignments further into the network, he said.

The DGP said further investigations are ongoing to establish forward and backward linkages in this case to identify handlers, supply chains, and financial networks.

Sharing operation details, Amritsar Commissioner of Police (CP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said following reliable inputs, police teams had arrested drug smuggler Soni Singh from the outskirts of city along with 150 grams of heroin and cash.

Investigation revealed that arrested accused Soni, who has six drug cases registered against him and came out of jail in June, had delivered consignments of nearly 30 kg heroin that had come via drones, supplying them further across the chain, he said.

The CP said that on Soni's disclosure, his associate Gursewak Singh was named and arrested with 8.037 kg heroin.

The latter was handling the consignments to be delivered in the city, he said, adding that further investigation led to the nomination and arrest of Soni's remaining active members of this smuggling module.

He said further investigations are ongoing. PTI CHS NB NB