Daijiworld Media Network - Satara

Satara, Jan 26: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted a mobile mephedrone manufacturing unit in Maharashtra’s Satara district, seizing drugs and raw material worth about Rs 55 crore and arresting five persons, officials said on Sunday.

Acting on specific inputs, DRI officials carried out ‘Operation Sahyadri Checkmate’ on Friday in a remote village in Karad tehsil. Teams from the country’s premier anti-smuggling agency raided the location and unearthed a fully operational mephedrone laboratory that was camouflaged as a poultry farm.

Officials said the unit was designed to be mobile and frequently changed locations to evade detection. The seizure included 11.848 kg of mephedrone in liquid form, 9.326 kg in semi-liquid form and 738 grams in crystalline form. In addition, 71.5 kg of raw material capable of producing another 15 kg of the drug was recovered. The total value of the seizure is estimated at around Rs 55 crore.

Mephedrone is a synthetic stimulant commonly referred to as a party drug and is known to pose serious health risks.

Three persons, including the manufacturer or “cook”, the financer-consigner and the owner of the poultry farm, were apprehended during the raid. Officials said the first batch of the contraband had been concealed at the farm owner’s residence.

In a follow-up operation, DRI teams arrested two more accused who were travelling to collect the final consignment. They were intercepted near an old octroi toll naka in a densely forested area.

Of the five arrested, four have previous cases registered against them under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act or have been prosecuted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), officials said.

This is the second major drug manufacturing unit busted in Satara district in the past two months. In December, the Mumbai Crime Branch had raided a clandestine drug lab in Jawali and dismantled a similar operation.