DRI seizes 238 kg of 'mephedrone' slurry from company premises

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence raided premises of a company located in neighbouring Palghar and seized 238 kg of a drug, suspected to be Mephedrone, an official said today.
The value of the seizure is estimated at over Rs 24 crore.
The agency had the input that suspected drug trafficker Bhanudas More alias Bhavesh Patel was engaged in the manufacture and trafficking of Mephedrone, also called as MD or Meow Meow.
The DRI sleuths suspect that More was helped by his accomplices Rouf Lulania, Wazhul Qamer Abul Wafa Choudhary alias Pappu Choudhary, and his employee Manish Rawal.
"During the search of the premises of Rainbow Paints at Palghar (on March 20), it came to light that the syndicate has recently installed Glass Line Reactor (GLR) for making Mephedrone. The search resulted into recovery and seizure of 238.20 kgs of slurry, purported to be mephedrone," an official said.

He said the manufacturing equipment were purchased from one Makwana in Mahape of Navi Mumbai.

The agency arrested More, Lulania, Choudhary and Rawal yesterday and produced them before court.
According to an official, Lulania has helped More for procuring equipment for setting up the plant.
Lulania had also convinced Raghuvir Patil, owner of Rainbow Paints, to allow them to utilise the storage tank of the company and to set up the GLR for manufacturing slurry of Mephedrone.
DRI yesterday recovered 8.126 kgs of a black coloured substance, suspected to be Hashish, 32 plastic trays used for drying Mephedrone, and other materials from residential premises of More. The agency has also seized some incriminating documents and personal diaries.

More was earlier convicted in a case registered by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in 2001 and had served a jail term till 2007.
He was declared absconder in a case pertaining to the illegal manufacturing of narcotics drugs (Mephedrone), registered by the ATS in Mumbai in July 2015.
According to the DRI official, More in his statement before the agency has admitted to manufacturing Mephedrone with the help of members of his syndicate.
He had sold 18 kgs of Mephedrone in crystalline powder form to two African nationals in the first week of this month.
The official said that Chodhary was involved in drug trafficking since 2001 and was convicted by court in a case registered by the Moradabad Customs. He had served a jail term of 10 years.

He was also arrested by the NCB, Mumbai, in a case related to seizure of Hashish in the US.
Choudhary told the agency that he knows More since 2003, and was told by him to sell mephedrone in Nepal.