Apple Trader Runs Pablo Escobar-esque Drug Op In Shimla, Evades Cops For Years

Shimla: The orders for the drug were generated through WhatsApp, supplies were initiated and delivery made; but the delivery person and the final receiver never saw each other. In fact, people in the demand and supply chains operated like unrelated units.

Shahi Mahatma aka Shashi Negi, an apple trader in the upper Shimla region, ran an interstate ‘chitta’ (adulterated heroin) racket for five to six years, avoiding enforcement agencies by ensuring the dots were always so wide apart that they could not be connected to reach him. Negi remained the only common link between the demand and supply chain in his ‘chitta’.

But he ran out of luck on September 20, a day after the police made this year’s biggest haul of drugs in Shimla – 465 grams of ‘chitta’ from Kharapathar.

“Links of the accused Mudasir Ahmed Mochi, a resident of Bhatpura village in Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir (who was arrested on September 19) were established with Shahi Mahatma alias Shashi Negi and the kingpin was arrested,” SP Shimla Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi told PTI on Saturday. 

Mr Gandhi said Negi and his 40 associates were supplying drugs in Rohru, Jubbal-Kotkhai and Theog areas of Upper Shimla under the garb of his apple business, and he had links with Nigerian drug gangs in New Delhi, gangs in Haryana and people in Kashmir.

Explaining the modus operandi of Negi’s gang, Mr Gandhi said he made sure the drugs being delivered changed hands four times before getting to their destination. He had hired different sets of unrelated people for bringing in demand, supplying drugs and receiving payments.

He himself never used to come in direct contact with any of the partners, Mr Gandhi said.

The demand for drugs was generated in WhatsApp groups and, after verification of the drug user, it was sent to Negi, who had another team to supply the drugs.

At the time of the final handover too, the delivery person would keep the drug in an isolated place and share a video with the buyer, who would pick it up from there, Mr Gandhi said.

As for the money, it reached Negi’s Dhan Laxmi account in Solan after travelling through various bank accounts, police said. And the people whose accounts were used during these transactions never knew it was drug money.

A fund flow of Rs 2.5-3 crores was detected in the bank accounts of the accused in the past 15 months, the police said.

Before the arrest of Negi, the police had already registered five FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act against nine persons who were part of the drug racket, police said, adding that, so far, 25 associates of the gang have been arrested. 

The social integrated intelligence network system involving local residents as informers helped in the registration of 650 cases and arrest of 1,100 drug peddlers, including 205 interstate dealers, in Shimla district in the past 18 months, said Mr Gandhi.

For impact assessment, police will increase intensive patrolling and the reach of social networking. Education institutions and large public places will be kept under surveillance to prevent such drug peddlers, he added.