DRUG DEALERS take online route to circulate ‘special’ NYE party schedule

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The drug lords have been exploiting social media sites and mobile messaging platforms to organise New Year eve events by circulating code-embedded party schedules on Facebook and Instagram. Though the strict vigil of Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) of Mumbai police has deterred teens from fixing their venues in the city but the online selling of drug-related paraphernalia, specially in the run up to New Year, has been recently flagged as a ‘worrying trend’.

The drug lords have been pushing contraband in the western suburbs through the handful of drug dealers living there. Earlier this month, ANC officials nailed Bakul HansRaj Chanderia from Khar (west) and seized contraband including LSD Dot and cocaine worth Rs 14.56 lakh from his possession. “Chanderia is a big catch for us ahead of New Year. He had created a drug brand called ‘Bakul Cocaine’ and had been supplying these to Btown and high profile people,” said an IPS officer.

Another senior IPS officer told the Free Press Journal that in Western region, the city police have registered 52 cases of possession of all na- ture of illegal drugs in 2017. Whereas last year only 11 such cases had been registered, added the officer.

Though the rave New Year parties will mostly be organised outside the city -Nashik, Pune, Lonavala, etc - - yet the next three days will be crucial for law enforcement agencies in Mumbai because city police chief Datta Padsalgikar has asked all Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)-level officers and Cyber Cell to keep a hawk eye on drug dealers.

“The strict vigil by all five units of ANC has restricted suppliers from entering Mumbai to sell contrabands but the drug lords have resorted to use dating applications, social networking sites including Facebook, Instagram, etc to continue their business. So we have activated our Cyber Cell to keep a strict vigil,” an IPS officer told FPJ. Instead of making calls or sending an SMS to drug lords, the ped- dlers prefer making WhatsApp calls for ‘secret chat’, added the officer.

Due to the use of technology by drug lords, who have set up an ‘online supermarket’ on the ‘dark web’ where the payment is made through online currency ‘bitcoin’, the Cyber Cell is finding it tough to penetrate the web marketplaces for illegal drugs.

“It is really difficult to conduct covert operations on the dark net as the payment is made through cryptocurrency. Drug lords are soliciting contrabands by embedding code words in their profile names. Besides safely selling contrabands like LSD and cocaine on the dark web, the drug dealers also surface on the public internet to discuss illegal drug sales. We are closely observing it,” said an officer attached to the Cyber Cell.

The interlinking of social media to host drug parties makes it harder to detect, as one has to pay lakhs to get a code-embedded ticket which is checked manually at the venue’s entrance. “Recently such a party was organised in Mumbai and I got to know about the date. I tried to send a dummy customer to get a ticket which was very expensive (Rs. 2.50 lakh for one person), but to no avail,” said the officer.