The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) detained drug lord Akshay Chhabra and Jaspal Singh, alias Goldy, under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PIT-NDPS) Act on Saturday.
In a press release, the NCB’s Chandigarh zonal unit said that both of them were being sent to Dibrugarh jail in Assam as a step to curtail their narco-smuggling activities.
Both the detainees, despite being in jail, had continued their nefarious activities, resulting in three additional FIRs against Akshay Chhabra and an additional FIR under the NDPS Act against Goldy.
This is the second time such action has been taken by the NCB to break the jail-based drug mafia link in the region.
On August 13, the first action was taken against Balwinder Singh, alias Billa Havellian.
According to the release, Chhabra was arrested from Jaipur airport while he was attempting to flee the country to Sharjah in the UAE on November 24, 2022.
During the course of the investigation by the NCB, the name of Jaspal Singh, alias Goldy, cropped up as one of the main members of Chhabra’s drug syndicate.
Upon investigation, it was revealed that this international drug syndicate based in Ludhiana had smuggled close to 1,400kg of heroin from the international check post (ICP) at Attari in Punjab, Mundra sea port in Gujarat besides Jammu and Kashmir.
A total of 20 people had been arrested by the NCB in this case, including the kingpin, traffickers, white-collar criminals and two Afghan nationals.
To date, the NCB has recovered about 40kg of heroin, 0.557kg of opium, 23.645kg of suspected narcotics powder, four bottles of HCL, 31 bullets and a magazine from the syndicate. Two heroin processing hideouts of the group were also busted.
The Chandigarh zonal unit of the NCB has frozen more than 57 crore worth of immovable/movable properties of the drug syndicate so far.
