The government of Uttar Pradesh is pursuing a rigorous campaign against the illegal trade of narcotic substances and illicit cough syrup smuggling across the region. In a recent crackdown, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force has dealt a severe blow to an interstate smuggling ring by arresting four members in Banda district. During the operation, the STF team recovered approximately 30,000 bottles of illicit codeine cough syrup with an estimated market value of three crore rupees. The apprehended individuals have been identified as Dhirendra Kumar from Banda, Praveen Kumar alias Lucky and Rohit Pandey from Atarra, and Shekhar Singh from Hapur.
Interception along the Bundelkhand Expressway
Acting on specific intelligence inputs, the STF had received information that an interstate syndicate was procuring consignments of illegal codeine cough syrup from Delhi, Haryana, and Chandigarh for distribution across various districts in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh. Following up on this tip-off, the Prayagraj field unit team of the STF was stationed in Banda on Thursday.
Authorities received fresh information indicating that suspects carrying the contraband in a DCM vehicle were heading from the Bisanda bypass towards Atarra and Banda via the Bundelkhand Expressway. Setting up a blockade near the northern roundabout of the Bundelkhand Expressway on the Bisanda-Atarra road, the team intercepted a red Tata Nexon car moving ahead of the DCM as well as the DCM truck itself. A thorough search of both vehicles led to the recovery of a massive stash of illegal codeine cough syrup bottles, and all four suspects were taken into custody on the spot.
Supplying the narcotics network instead of medical stores
During custodial interrogation, the accused revealed that they operated an active syndicate specializing in the trafficking of illicit codeine cough syrup intended for substance abuse. The network regularly supplied these restricted items to various districts within Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Investigations further revealed that the syndicate members procured the cough syrup shipments from a pharmaceutical establishment located in Dwarka, Delhi. Instead of routing the medicines to legitimate medical stores in Banda, Atarra, Chitrakoot, and bordering districts of Madhya Pradesh, the consignments were directly fed into the illegal narcotics network. The syndicate changed the product wrappers to sell the bottles at inflated prices, subsequently splitting the profits among themselves. Vehicle drivers were offered a separate cash incentive of 25,000 rupees for safely delivering each consignment.
Forged GST invoices used to fabricate paperwork
Another crucial dimension of the criminal enterprise surfaced during the STF questioning. According to the accused, the GST invoices and billing paperwork associated with the supply and sale of the codeine cough syrup were heavily manipulated and generated under the name of a medical agency situated in Hamirpur. The documents utilized a commercial firm that had already been declared defunct or bogus by the commercial tax department. Operating under the cover of these fraudulent documents, the illicit trade of codeine syrup was being sustained.
Heroin worth eighty lakh rupees seized in Sonभद्र
In a separate operation, the Anti-Narcotics Task Force Varanasi unit arrested a drug peddler named Himanshu Gautam from the Karma police station area in Sonभद्र. Authorities recovered heroin valued at roughly 80 lakh rupees from the possession of the accused. The suspect disclosed that he had been supplying heroin by packaging it into small paper packets. Police are currently investigating other angles related to the case.
Prior to this, enforcement actions earlier in March included the attachment of assets worth 12.55 crore rupees in connection with a codeine-laced cough syrup smuggling racket, where police seized cars, trucks, and 20 lakh rupees in cash. Other recent enforcement measures involved the attachment of over 5 crore rupees worth of properties belonging to Bhola Jaiswal in Varanasi, alongside disciplinary actions where a station house officer was suspended and four policemen were arrested in Supaul for allegedly stealing and selling seized cough syrup.
