PANAJI
The Narcotics Control Bureau Mumbai on Wednesday said it has "successfully dismantled" an organised drug syndicate and arrested its kingpin Danish Merchant alias “Danish Chikna” and his wife Henna Bharat Shah at a luxury resort in Goa.
A press release issued by NCB, Mumbai said that the operation has led to the seizure of 1.341 kilograms of Mephedrone and four persons were arrested in all, including the kingpin couple.
An NCB team intercepted one N Gaikwad in Pune and recovered 502 grams of Mephedrone from him. He then disclosed a storage location in Mumbai where an additional 839 grams of Mephedrone was recovered from an associate Zohaib Shaikh, the NCB press release said.
The premise was associated with Henna Shah who is the wife and key partner of Merchant, the kingpin, the press release said, adding that they both went underground after the seizures.
Merchant and Shah were orchestrating the supply chain from behind the scenes the NCB's investigations revealed, it said.
The couple were being intensively tracked by the NCB teams which revealed that they duo were constantly changing hideouts in multiple States. They were also changing mobile numbers apparently to evade being detected, it said.
Eventually, the couple were finally traced to the luxury resort in Goa and nabbed via a well-coordinated operation on October 25, the NCB said.
Merchant, a resident of Dongri, Mumbai, is a notorious repeat offender previously arrested in 2021 related to a seizure of CBCS and Ganja.
He was also booked by Rajasthan Police in 2021 in a narcotics case and by Mumbai Police in 2024 for his involvement in illegal manufacture of synthetic drugs. He also has seven other criminal cases booked by Mumbai Police and was declared “Tadipaar” (externed) from the Mumbai Municipal area in 2024.
His wife, Bharat Shah, also has a history of involvement in drug-related activities, the NCB said.
