Vijayawada police bust Ephedrine racket

Vijayawada: Vijayawada city police have successfully busted Ephedrine drugs case by arresting the accused in Chennai. The accused used the Aadhaar card of a student to send a drug parcel to Australia from DST Courier in Bharati Nagar, Vijayawada, on April 30.

DCP Mary Prashanti produced the accused before the media in Vijayawada on Wednesday and explained case details.

According to the DCP, drugs parcel was booked at DST courier point in Bharati Nagar and the parcel was sent to Australia. The accused, Kuppuswamy Arunachalam of Chennai, came to Vijayawada and sent the parcel to Australia. He told the courier staff that his Aadhaar card was not clear and asked an employee at courier point Guttula Teja to use his Aadhaar card to send the parcel. Guttula sent the parcel with his Aadhaar card to Australia as he was not aware that the parcel contains drugs.

The parcel went to Canada instead of Australia and returned to Bengaluru courier office. Bengaluru customs officials seized the parcel and enquired about it. They asked courier worker Teja to come to Bengaluru to collect the parcel and arrested him there on the charges of sending drug parcel to Australia. Teja has claimed that he was innocent and not aware of drugs.

On the other hand, one youth Kondaveedu Gopi Sai met Patamata police and lodged a complaint that his Aadhaar card was misused by some persons to register a parcel in Vijayawada. Police earlier suspected that Gopi Sai sent the banned product Ephedrine to Australia and questioned him. The accused, Kuppuswamy, had used the Aadhaar number of Gopi, who hails from Sattenapalli of Palnadu district. When Gopi was studying in Chennai a few years ago, he gave his Aadhaar card to a local hotel owner. Accused Kuppuswamy had created a fake Aadhaar card with the name of Gopi. He came to DST courier in Vijayawada and booked a parcel to Australia. He said it will be safe if he books drugs parcel in Vijayawada instead of Chennai.

He created the fake Aadhaar with the name of Gopi of Sattenapalli.

Vijayawada Commissioner of Police Kanti Rana suspected some foul play and formed four teams and sent to Chennai, Hyderabad, Sattenapalli and Bengaluru.

The special teams noticed that Kuppuswamy has created fake Aadhaar card and used to send parcel to Australia.

Kuppuswamy cleverly duped the DST courier worker Teja and asked the latter to send the courier with his Aadhaar card as proof.

Special team nabbed Kuppuswamy in Chennai airport while he was returning from Dubai. City police seized electric and electronic goods worth Rs 25 lakh from Kuppuswamy at Chennai airport. They seized six sets of DVD players, Sony play station, five Lenovo laptops, 30 pieces of i-phones, two boxes of memory cards, gold wristwatch, old passport, new passport, 10 mobile phones, six pieces of game drivers. He was sent to judicial remand.