Express News Service By

CHENNAI: Police on Tuesday arrested a 24-year-old engineering graduate, who is the son of a Tahsildar, for peddling high-end drugs in the city.

Sources said the youth, identified as H Swaminathan, of Vijayalakshmi Puram, Ambattur, was arrested along with another person Raja alias ‘Thakkali’ Raja, who introduced him to the drug business.

Swaminathan completed BE in electronics and instrumentation at a private college in Tirunindravur and was actively involved in selling drugs for the last one-and-half years after allegedly being inspired by Ajith-starrer Billa series of films. Drugs worth nearly Rs 1 crore were seized from the arrested two.

“The youth got introduced to Raja, who was already peddling drugs, when he was hunting for a job after completing studies. Soon, Swaminathan became very active in the business and bought high-end drugs like heroin and ketamine in bulk quantities. He says he wanted to make quick money,” said police who claimed that Swaminathan had confessed that he was partly inspired by the Billa series of films, in which the lead character, played by Ajith, was a drug and arms smuggler.

“Initially, he was cheated by a few peddlers who sold him fake drugs. So he decided to get involved actively to recover the losses. Swaminathan said he peddled heroin, brown sugar and ketamine and had bought the drugs in kilos and distributed them for huge profits,” police said.

“When we arrested him on Tuesday, we seized a kilogram each of heroin and brown sugar and 1.8 kgs of ketamine. The market value of this is nearly a crore,” said another officer.