The Narcotics Control Bureau has busted a huge drug trafficking racket involving some prominent musicians and actors who are allegedly involved along with some college students in Bengaluru.
According to the reports, on August 21, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials conducted raids at three places and arrested three drug dealers. The NCB raided a residence of a drug peddler in Kalyan Nagar, Bengaluru and seized 145 MDMA pills weighing 60 gm and cash of Rs 2,20,500.
In another raid, the team seized 96 pills of MDMA and 180 LSD blots at Nikoo Homes in Bengaluru. Later, 270 pills of MDMA were recovered from the house of Anika, located at Doddagubbi.
MDMA (methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), commonly known as ecstasy, is a party drug that changes the mood and produces a feeling of increased energy and pleasure. It is believed that each ecstasy pill costs anywhere between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,500 in the domestic market.
The NCB has nabbed the drug kingpin D Anika and two of her associates Mohammad Anoop and R Ravindran with a large haul of drugs.
Drugs supplied to actors, musicians in the south film industry
NCB Deputy Director KPS Malhotra said that the drug racket had distributed drugs not only to prominent musicians and top actors in Karnataka but also to children of VIPs in the state.
Reportedly, Anika, who worked as a TV actress in the past, had connections with top actors, musicians of the south film industry and had even supplied drugs to them in the past. In fact, Anika herself was under the influence of drugs when NCB busted them. The NCB officials had to wait for over 10 hours to interrogate her as she abused the officials.
Anika had taken to narcotic supply after quitting acting career. Anika used her connections in the industry to establish contacts with celebrities and started supplying drugs to them. Ravindran, who was the main distributor, had over 2000 numbers saved in his mobiles, including at least 10 top Kannada cinema actors, prominent musicians and children of VIPs.
Reportedly, they have been running the racket for many years. “Anika sourced the drugs from abroad via an international courier service,” said an official, adding that payments were made in bitcoins.
Drugs came from Europe
During the interrogation, Anika revealed that she was into drug dealing since 2014. Earlier, she used to supply drugs to college students at rave parties and later increased her customer base to more affluent sections of the society including actors, VIPs etc.
According to the NCB officials, the seized drugs came all the way from Western Europe, especially from Belgium capital Brussels. The drug dealers in Europe used to supply synthetic designer drugs to their Indian counterparts. Reportedly, the drugs would be transported from Brussels by concealing it in consignments of children’s toys.
The demand for these synthetic drugs rose across the world after the Belgium EDM festival ‘Tomorrowland’.