Bengaluru students sourced LSD stamps and seeds over the dark web for peddling, say police

Growing weed at home and sourcing narcotics via the dark web has landed some youth in Bengaluru in trouble. Police discovered that they had turned their flat into an indoor site to cultivate cannabis, using pots kept under LED lights.

A business management student from Bihar studying in the city procured narcotics from the Netherlands through the dark web and sold it here. He also allegedly grew ‘hydro’ ganja (cannabis) in his flat in Kengeri, on the western outskirts of the city.

Police who raided the flat on Thursday arrested 23-year-old Amatya Rishi, along with two of his associates, one of whom is a student from the same college. They allegedly recovered ₹20 lakh worth of 225 LSD slips (stamps) and 2 kg of ganja. The police said this was the second such ring they had busted recently.

It was the college authorities who tipped off the police. When the police raided the flat, they found two rooms fitted with LED lights. “Ganja plants were being grown in small pots using coco-peat,” a senior official said.

The police also recovered ganja seeds and 225 LSD slips, which Rishi had allegedly procured from the Netherlands through a dark web site named ‘Empire Market’. “It was delivered via courier. A probe pointed to the involvement of another student from the same college, Aditya Kumar, 21, from Bengaluru; and one Mangal Mukhiya, 30, an acquaintance of Amatya Rishi from Bihar,” police said.

Two students from Kolkata were arrested in the last week of November and narcotics worth ₹1 crore, allegedly procured from Canada, were seized.

“In both cases, tech-savvy students were running peddling operations. Bitcoins were the currency,” said Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner (Crime), Bengaluru. “This is a new challenge. Those procuring narcotics do not know the identity of the supplier. Moreover, these are not large multi-nodal networks but short chains. Busting a ring only affects that chain,” he added. The Bengaluru police have asked Customs officials at Kempegowda International Airport to ensure parcels containing narcotics and banned substances do not pass through.