Punjab Police busts smuggling racket operated by US-based person, arrests man with 12 kg heroin
Oct 23, 2023
Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], October 23 : Amid the ongoing war against drugs, Punjab Police has busted a cross-border drug smuggling racket being operated by USA-based smuggler Sarwan Singh with the arrest of one person after recovering 12 kg of heroin from his possession, an official said on Monday.
According to the Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav, Sarwan Singh, who is carrying a Rs 2 lakh reward on his arrest, is the brother of infamous drug smuggler Ranjeet alias Cheeta and is wanted in a 532-kg heroin haul case, in which the latter was arrested in May 2020.
Ranjit Cheeta was the mastermind behind the smuggling of 532 packets of heroin, which were seized by the Customs Department at ICP Attari in July 2019 and are being investigated by the NIA.
The arrested drug smuggler has been identified as Rahul of Naraingarh in Amritsar.
"Apart from seizing heroin, the police teams have also impounded his car, in which he was travelling," the police said.
DGP Gaurav Yadav further said that following intel inputs that associates of Sarwan Singh have retrieved the heroin consignment dropped via drone and are going to deliver it to someone, State Special Operation Cell (SSOC) Amritsar conducted special police checking in the city area of Amritsar and arrested the accused Rahul after recovering 12 packets of heroin, weighing 1kg each, from his Honda Amaze car.
As per preliminary investigations, the accused person was directly in touch with USA-based smuggler Sarwan Singh and was supplying heroin across the state after importing it from Pakistan.
Sharing more details, AIG SSOC Amritsar Sukhminder Singh Mann said that further investigations are being conducted to probe the backward and forward linkages and unearth the whole network of drug suppliers, dealers and their buyers.
"Efforts are being made to ascertain the total amount of narcotics procured by the arrested accused to date," he added.
A case was registered on October 22 under sections 21, 25 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act at the Police State Special Operation Cell Amritsar.
