Bengaluru’s Central Crime Branch (CCB) on Friday arrested three men for growing marijuana in flower pots inside a flat in the city. The police arrested Aditya and Bihar natives Mangal and Amathya for procuring marijuana seeds and growing the plants using special lighting inside a flat on Mysuru Road in Kengeri.
Central Crime Branch Joint Commissioner of Police Sandeep Patil said that the three peddle narcotics in the city, after smuggling them in from Holland through the dark web. Deccan Chronicle reported that the accused had their own network of customers spread across several cities in the country, including Bengaluru.
Police seized eight flower pots with marijuana shoots, 225 lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) strips, 2 kg marijuana, three mobile phones, Rs 10,200 cash, special LED lights and stands and a computer from the gang.
According to the police, the drugs command a street value of Rs 20 lakh.
The raid, which was based on a tipoff, comes after the CCB had carried out a similar operation on November 28. At the time, the police had recovered as many as 14 packets of ganja hidden inside milk powder containers and another 100 cigarettes laced with hashish oil
Other contrabands that were seized included 12 packets of weed chocolate and peppermint jelly packets. The accused were from Kolkata. They were identified as Atif Salim (25) and Rohit Das (26), who had sourced “hydro ganja” from Canada through the dark web. The duo would courier their drugs using e-commerce packaging to avoid suspicion and did transactions through bitcoins.
The CCB sleuths had received a tip-off a few months ago that shipments of drugs worth lakhs were coming into Bengaluru through the Kempegowda International Airport. According to the police, Atif Salim had contacted a drug peddler on the dark web through a messaging app Wickr Me. The drug peddler, police say, is from Canada and the information was obtained after the police questioned Atif.