BPO drug bust: Key suspect ‘thought he was selling Viagra’
One of the men arrested in the international drug racket busted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) last week has pleaded innocent, saying that he didn’t know his call centre was selling controlled or banned narcotic drugs.
The DRI busted the racket on November 22 after three call centres were identified for using the details of people residing in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia to sell the drugs. The racket had been running for almost a year. One such call centre had only four callers but had been making lakhs of rupees in commission by selling the drugs.
For every successful sale, the call centre would get 10 to 15 per cent in commission. The centre, which was running from Ambernath, was reportedly being run by one Nitin Pawar. Pawar is presently in judicial custody.
Viagra and other supplements and when tablets of Alprazolam, Diazepam , Nitrazepam and others were added to the list, he thought that these were drugs of a similar nature.” Pawar met the racket kingpin Manjeet Singh in 2014.
Most of the data was from telephone directories and bank account data that Singh sourced through his contacts. He also roped in some youngsters and trained them to use a US accent to make calls. “Calls were initially made for Viagra and clients would then be pursued to buy Alprazolam and various other Amphetamine-based drugs. The order would be placed with Singh to ship the contraband. The contraband, declared as drug test samples, would then be shipped to the client’s address,” said a DRI source.
“A single tablet of Alprazolam, Diazepam, Nitrazepam, Zolpidem or other such drugs would cost around 5 to 10 dollars. The shipment would be not amount to more than thirty to fifty tablets but every day the call centre would sell over 1,000 tablets,” he added.
Around 13 lakhs were found in Pawar’s account and seized, while Rs 5 lakhs in cash from his residence andgold ornaments worth Rs 4.5 lakhs were also seized. DRI has also seized 16 lakh tablets worth Rs 64 lakhs from the premises of Allied Air Services, a courier company run by Manjeet Singh and his associates.
The DRI busted the racket on November 22 after three call centres were identified for using the details of people residing in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia to sell the drugs. The racket had been running for almost a year. One such call centre had only four callers but had been making lakhs of rupees in commission by selling the drugs.
For every successful sale, the call centre would get 10 to 15 per cent in commission. The centre, which was running from Ambernath, was reportedly being run by one Nitin Pawar. Pawar is presently in judicial custody.
Claiming his innocence, his lawyer Jayesh Wani said, “Pawar never knew that the products being sold by Singh were controlled or banned drugs. He had initially been roped in to sell
Most of the data was from telephone directories and bank account data that Singh sourced through his contacts. He also roped in some youngsters and trained them to use a US accent to make calls. “Calls were initially made for Viagra and clients would then be pursued to buy Alprazolam and various other Amphetamine-based drugs. The order would be placed with Singh to ship the contraband. The contraband, declared as drug test samples, would then be shipped to the client’s address,” said a DRI source.
“A single tablet of Alprazolam, Diazepam, Nitrazepam, Zolpidem or other such drugs would cost around 5 to 10 dollars. The shipment would be not amount to more than thirty to fifty tablets but every day the call centre would sell over 1,000 tablets,” he added.
Around 13 lakhs were found in Pawar’s account and seized, while Rs 5 lakhs in cash from his residence and
