Meth lab with ties to Mexican “cannibal” cartel busted

Less than a week after the explosion of a meth lab in Chennai – a reference to the legendary TV show “Breaking Bad” – similar scenes occurred in the capital region. Cops raided a manufacturing center at Kasana Industrial Area in Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh and recovered 95 kg of the drug in solid and liquid form along with chemicals like acetone and red phosphorus.

The narcotics were manufactured for sale in India and abroad, the police said; This operation involved members of a Mexican drug cartel called Jalisco New Generation (CJNG). The CJNG began as an offshoot of the Milenio Cartel, one of Mexico's most feared cartels. CJNG members, Mexico News Daily claimed in 2017, cannibalize new recruits who fail their training.

The joint drug operation was present across Delhi and the national capital region.

How the Delhi-Mexico drug cartel came to be

Preliminary investigations suggest that a Delhi-based businessman and, worryingly, a warden from the city's Tihar Jail were also involved in this operation; The businessman, whose name has not been released, was arrested by Treasury officials in an earlier drug case.

The two met when the businessman was locked up in Tihar Jail and hatched this plan. They hired a Mumbai-based chemist for manufacturing and “quality control” was outsourced to the Mexicans; A cartel member was sent to Delhi.

The businessman and the prison guard were arrested, but it is unclear whether this cartel member was also taken into custody. A fourth person, also not yet identified, was also arrested. All four are currently in police custody.

A fifth arrestee – an associate of the businessman – was arrested from Delhi's Rajouri Garden.

Details of the operation, including finances and assets, are currently being worked out.

India's Meth and Synthetic Drug Crisis

This is the Narcotics Control Bureau's sixth raid this year alone.

The other five were in Gandhinagar and Amreli in Gujarat, Jodhpur and Sirohi in Rajasthan and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. The Bhopal plant supplied over 900 kg of mephedrone in solid and liquid form, as well as a staggering 7,000 kg of various chemicals and drug manufacturing machinery.

The drug business in Chennai – run by a chemistry student who initially sold meth – was a “start-up”; 245 grams were seized, but police there believe there could be a connection to a larger network.

READ | 'Breaking Bad' in Chennai: Student cooked meth, 7 arrested

Another operation failed in Assam last week; In a joint operation by Assamese and Manipuri police, heroin worth Rs 6 crore was seized and two people were arrested.

READ | Heroin worth Rs 6 crore seized in Assam, interstate cartel busted

And in another raid, Gujarat police seized drugs worth Rs 250 crore from Bharuch district and arrested a local businessman whose company had earlier nabbed drugs worth Rs 5,000 crore.

The number of drug raids, particularly on laboratories producing synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and mephedrone, highlights the drug mafia's shift to smaller laboratories set up in industrial areas to evade the police. Smaller operations allow them to reduce waste and toxic fumes, for example.

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