the goan I network
PANAJI
A raid by the Crime Branch on Saturday netted two Russians who were allegedly involved in marijuana cultivation and also ran a laboratory to process the raw harvested stuff in a house at Siolim.
A team of Crime Branch officers swooped down on the duo namely, Maxim Moskichev and Artem Seregin, and found nearly 30 kgs of the narcotic in the house.
Police Inspector Rahul Halarnkar who was part of the team that conducted the raid told The Goan that the duo have been booked under Sections of the NDPS Act which prohibits cultivation.
The team also found equipment and electrical gadgets in the make-shift lab they had set up in the house to process the harvested opium before supplying it in the narcotic market.
The value of the seized contraband was pegged at around Rs 10 lakh in the international market.
Meanwhile, the number of cases booked under the NDPS act in Goa this year have astronomically risen.
In the first six months this year, 106 cases were booked under the NDPS Act, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who also holds the home portfolio, told the Goa legislative assembly in a written reply.
Last year, 168 cases were registered, while two years ago the figure was only 61, Parrikar’s written reply to a question posed by Navelim MLA, Luizinho Faleiro said.
