MUMBAI: Mephedrone and chemicals used in its manufacture, collectively worth nearly Rs 104 crore, was recovered by a city police team by raiding a factory in Rajasthan over the weekend.
This drug bust follows from a trail of another bust in Mumbai last December when three people had been arrested. On Dec 31, constable Chandrakant Pawar from Sakinaka police station had received information that some individuals were to sell mephedrone in the area.Police were on high alert across the city on New Year’s Eve. Acting on the tip-off, the police arrested three people – Sarfaraz Shaikh, 22, Majid Umar Shaikh, 44, and Abdul Kadar Shaikh, 44. About 1.655 kg of mephedrone, worth Rs 3.35 crore, was seized from them.

DCP Mangesh Shinde said investigators were keen to trace the source from where the drug was being procured which led them to the latest weekend drug bust in Rajasthan. Analysis of phone records of the three arrested in Mumbai led the police to Pune where they detained one Prashant Patil. He told the police about a factory in Jodhpur where mephedrone was being manufactured.
Patil told the police that one Hukumaram Chaudhary, 40, from Jodhpur was running the unit at the behest of one Sachin Kadam, also from Jodhpur.
A police team went to the factory in Jodhpur and detained its owner, Chaudhary. He told the police that raw material for manufacture of mephedrone and the final product were hidden in a godown. Officials seized raw material worth Rs 2.8 lakh besides 69 kg of mephedrone worth Rs 104 crore.
The police said they are probing the chain of distribution across states.
The bust was made under the supervision of joint police commissioner, law and order, Satyanarayan and additional police commissioner Paramjeet Singh Dahiya.