Ganja delivery through Amazon unearthed, five held

Visakhapatnam Close on the heels of seizure of 800 kg of ganja at Duvvada on the city outskirts worth Rs.80 lakh and 2,000 kg worth Rs.2 crore by Mothugudem Police in neighbouring East Godavari district, the Madhya Pradesh and the Andhra Pradesh Police have busted a racket involving using of popular e-commerce site Amazon for delivery of marijuana in attractive packs online.

Following a crackdown launched in the past few months, the police have arrested several people mostly in the tribal areas on Andhra-Odisha border on the charge of either cultivating or supplying dry ganja in various forms to Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and other parts of the country. It is suspected that several bigwigs are also involved behind the racket.

In the latest incident, one Ch. Srinivasa Rao of Kancharapalem area in the city has admitted that he along with Suraj and Mukul Jaiswal had registered themselves as vendors for supply of ayurvedic herbs for cure of diabetes. They used to arrange delivery of the substance to clients in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The MP police had earlier alerged their counterparts in AP after arresting two persons belonging to Visakhapatnam for their involvement in supplying ganja online to some people in Bhopal.

The vendors as part of their modus operandi had registration under GST and were pasting the invoice on the parcels to prevent the authorities from seizing the banned substance.

Joint Director of Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) told reporters here on Saturday that five more people including a father-son duo were arrested for their alleged involvement in smuggling ganja through e-commerce site Amazon. The arrested included Srinivasa Rao's son Mohan Raju alias Rakhi, J. Kumaraswamy, B, Krishnam Raju and Ch, Venkateswara Rao. The accused included the driver of a pickup van and two delivery boys. Earlier, the Bhopal Police had nabbed Mukul Jaiswal and Suraj Pawaiya.

The JD said during the raid, they found 48 kg of dry ganja in a house rented by the accused at Kancharapalem In the city on November 21. Packing materials like an e-weighing machine, cardboard boxes, tapes and printouts were recovered from the house.

During the investigation, Srinivasa Rao told the police that they were only supplying ganja under the garb of supernatural stevia dry leaves on behalf of Suraj and Mukul Jaiswal's Babu Tex, a firm registered by them as vendors for online delivery of cannabis.