Banda, September 3 (Daily Kiran) : The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UP STF) has intensified its crackdown on illegal codeine cough syrup and drug trafficking, resulting in significant arrests in Banda district. Four members of an interstate smuggling gang were apprehended, and approximately 30,000 bottles of illegal codeine cough syrup valued at nearly ₹3 crore were seized.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Dhirendra Kumar from Banda, Praveen Kumar alias Lucky from Atra, Rohit Pandey, and Shekhar Singh from Hapur. The STF received intelligence that the gang was transporting illegal codeine cough syrup from Delhi, Haryana, and Chandigarh to various states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh.
On Thursday, the STF’s field unit in Prayagraj was stationed in Banda when they received a tip-off about a group transporting the syrup via a DCM vehicle. The team intercepted both a red Tata Nexon car and the DCM near the northern roundabout of the Bundelkhand Expressway. A search of the vehicles revealed a large quantity of illegal syrup, leading to the arrest of all four suspects.
During questioning, the suspects disclosed that they were part of an active gang involved in smuggling codeine cough syrup for recreational use. They supplied the syrup to various districts in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Investigators learned that the gang sourced the syrup from a pharmaceutical establishment in Dwarka, Delhi, and instead of selling it through medical stores, distributed it in the drug trade. They altered the packaging to sell it at inflated prices, sharing the profits among themselves, while the driver received a separate reward of ₹25,000 for safely delivering the shipment.
Furthermore, the STF uncovered another critical aspect of the gang’s operations. The suspects indicated that they used fraudulent GST invoices and bills linked to a medical agency in Hamirpur, which had already been declared non-functional by the commercial tax department. This documentation facilitated their illegal trade in codeine syrup.
In a related development, the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) from the Varanasi unit arrested drug trafficker Himanshu Gautam in the Karma police station area of Sonbhadra. Approximately ₹80 lakh worth of heroin was recovered from him. Gautam admitted to packaging and supplying heroin in small quantities. The police are investigating further aspects of this case.
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