the goan I network
PANAJI
A Mumbai court on Saturday remanded all the accused, including the four arrested in Goa, by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in its nationwide ‘Operation Vitamin’ which also busted an international drug syndicate and unearthed a factory at the Pissurlem industrial estate producing Ketamine, a popular date-rape drug.
DRI got custody of the men till July 12 from the Mumbai Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate who said that accused need not be produced to the court in person henceforth, as their say can be recorded through the video-conference facility.
Two British Nationals - Jonathan Thorn alias John and Barry John Bracken - a Vietnamese fugitive Nguyen Man Cuong, who faces a life sentence in Canada, and Sarpreet Singh from Punjab were arrested by DRI from Goa on June 12.
The Central agency had simultaneously raided around 14 residential and industrial premises across many states and dismantled 4 illicit ketamine manufacturing laboratories including the one located in Pissurlem-Goa belonging to a top BJP functionary Vassudev Parab. The other facilities were in Vadodara and Raigad.
Sarpreet Singh handled the operations at the Pissurlem factory ‘Vijay Industries’ located in Pissurlem industrial estate where ketamine was being manufactured.
Singh has confessed that 15 to 20 kgs of ketamine was produced every four to five days.
The factory was taken on lease unofficially from Parab by the Canada-based NRI Jimi Singh Sandhu.
Totally around 308 kgs of ketamine was seized in the operation besides 2000 kgs of raw material enough to produce another 250 kgs.
The seizure is huge and more than five times the total seizure of the substance in 2016-17.
It is popular as a party drug and is also commonly used in veterinary science as an animal anaesthetic.
Mixing it with alcohol and heroin increases the risk of respiratory depression, which can be fatal.
According to DRI, those arrested were key members of an international syndicate linked to South-East Asia and also to the West, including Canada.
There is evidence that the syndicate has supplied ketamine to traffickers in Sri Lanka, Mozambique, United Kingdom, Canada, Malaysia, Nepal, Australia, Vietnam and Kenya.
Courier and postal services are the common mode of transporting the drug and hawala channels were used for cash transfers.
Jonathan Thorn, the British National arrested in Goa is said to have delivered ketamine at a mall in Panvel on two occasions, as per the statements recorded by the DRI team.
Another British national arrested in the case, has admitted to the agency that the equipment used to manufacture ketamine found at a outhouse rented by him belonged to Thorn.
Interestingly the Vietnamese arrested in the case from Goa had jumped parole in Canada where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of a rival Asian gang member in 1999.
He was granted permission by the Parole Board of Canada to travel to Vietnam in 2015 and never returned.
