The Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths busted a drug peddling racket with the arrest of three men, who allegedly used Darknet to procure narcotics online and sell them to college students. They used an online portal for buying and selling antique furniture to source the contraband and used encrypted software. Money was transferred using bitcoins to avoid attention.

Based on a tip-off, the CCB officials sent one of their informants on the pretext of prospective client and nabbed Manikantan (26) when he was trying to sell drugs to his clients near Outer Ring Road in Banashankari on Tuesday.

After questioning Manikantan, police picked up two of his associates identified as Debendu Roy (26) and Jagsai Pravesh (23) from Banashankari and RMV Extension respectively. While Manikantan has completed his BCA from Dayanand Sagar College, Debyendu is a graduate in Information Science from the same college.

According to police officials, students of leading engineering colleges in the city were their customers. Officials have also recovered eight grams of ecstasy pills worth Rs. 2.2 lakh, four LSB blotting papers of one gram each, 90 grams of marijuana, 23 grams of charas.

The arrested persons have allegedly confessed that they had been ordering ecstasy pills online and getting the contraband delivered to their address on a regular basis. However, they would get LSD, charas and ganja from their contacts in Goa.

“All transactions were done through fake profiles, which makes it even harder to find who introduced them to the website or who sold the narcotics to them,” said an official in the Women and Narcotics wing of the CCB, adding that they are trying to track down the seller through the IP address. The laptops and four mobile phones seized from the arrested persons have been handed over to the Cyber Crime cell to procure more information.

All transactions were done through fake profiles, which makes it even harder to find who introduced them to the website or who sold the narcotics to them.

An official

The Women and Narcotics wing of the CCB

‘They used Darknet to procure narcotics online and sell them to college students’