With a total seizure of 18.5tonne of Ephedrine and 2.5 tonne of acetic anhydride, Thane police is making news for all the right reasons. For this achievement, they have received a letter of appreciation from the US Drug Enforcement Agency, whose officials visited Thane police commissioner's office on Wednesday.

The police have so far arrested 8 persons, including a Nigerian national, and the total worth of the seized drugs is around Rs2,500 crore in the international market. During investigation the police found the alleged kingpin of the racket is none other than Vicky Goswami, husband of former Bollywood actor Mamta Kulkarni. Goswami, who is out on bail after he was arrested by the Kenyan police officials with the information from the US DEA, will soon be extradited from Kenya.

Manoj Jain — director of Avon Lifesciences Limited office in Solapur MIDC, a company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange — has been termed as the brain behind the drug racket. Along with him, Punit Shringi, manager of the unit, was held with drugs hidden in his car that was recovered from Dharavi. Pradeep Singh Gill, transporter of drugs in various states, too has been arrested.

"With the arrests made in the case and busting the international drug racket the US DEA chief Derek Odney met us and gave a letter of appreciation. He also acknowledged the fact that the drug cartel in the International market have faced a major setback," said Param Bir Singh, Thane CP.

The drug trail

It all began with the arrest of Sipren Chinassa, a Nigerian national, with 500g of ephedrine who led the cops to the manufacturing unit at Solpaur. Chinassa led the cops to Sagar Powale and Mayur Sukhdare, who were arrested in Thane for allegedly possessing around 2kg of ephedrine. This was followed by the arrest of Dhaneshwar Swamy with 5.50kg of ephedrine powder. After this Dnyaneshwar Dhimri, production manager from Solapur unit, was also arrested.

On further grilling, the investigation led to persons related to the company — Manoj Jain, Punit Shringi and Pradeep Singh Gill. "Members and directors of the company were directly connected to the Kenyan drug mafia king Vicky Goswami. Earlier, too, they had not disclosed the amount of drug that was being manufactured at the company," said a crime branch police officer.

He added: "The accused were planning to arrange a unit at Mombasa in Kenya were they can turn ephedrine into methamphetamine which is costlier in the international market. The Gujarat and Maharashtra police are working on this drug cartel while we have found that 4-5 persons are still absconding. We will arrest them soon."