28 September,2016 01:23 PM IST | | Suraj Ojha
Mumbai police is on the hunt for gangs that are smuggling and illegally selling bottles of cough syrup to addicts in a racket that spans across several states
Once the cops arrested dealer Abdul Faisal Rehman Ansari (left), he led them to one of the suppliers, Asad Ashraf Akhlak Ahmed
Youngsters looking for a cheap thrill are fast falling prey to the latest drug to take the city by storm - cough syrup. This cheap and humble medicine has become so popular that drug users are coughing up almost three times as much money to score a bottle, even as gangs smuggle the stock in from as far as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and south India.
Customers are so addicted to cough syrup, they are willing to pay three times the price for a bottle. Representation pic/Thinkstock
Coughing up money
There are several gangs smuggling and selling cough syrup illegally, across not just Mumbai but Indore, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Although the drug costs just Rs 95 for a 100g bottle, the smugglers hike the price to almost three times the amount. Customers are so addicted, they are willing to pay as much as Rs 250 for the same bottle, giving the gangs a profit of about 150%.
At one point of time, cough syrup was easily available over the counter (OTC), but the authorities realised the danger of drug abuse and declared that it should only be sold under prescription. But much like the drug lords supplying cocaine, heroin, LSD and hash, the cough syrup gangs have also established a strong network of supply.
Modus operandi
Their reach extends to almost all the big states across the country. Earlier, the gangs would boldly smuggle cough syrup in bulk on trains, trucks and buses. But as the police and Food and Drug Administration began to tighten the net around them, the smugglers began to move the contraband in cars.
Recently, Mumbai Police busted one of these gangs with the arrest of a dealer, Abdul Faisal Rehman. The 25-year-old accused was arrested in south Mumbai by cops and the FDA, who also recovered 50 bottles of cough syrup from him. However, the cops suspect that this is an inter-state racket and that the kingpin is in Gujarat.
The accused, Ansari, is a resident of Agripada. The cops had kept tabs on him for a week after they got a tip-off about his deals. "More accused are likely to be arrested in the future. We are now looking for people who supplied the syrup to Ansari," said an officer from Agripada police station.
Ansari has already led the police to another accused - supplier Asad Ashraf Akhlak Ahmed from Kurla. According to police sources, Ahmed smuggles the syrup from Madhya Pradesh and distributes it to peddlers like Ansari, who then sells it to the user.
Under scanner
FDA Commissioner Harshadeep Kamble told this paper, "This gang collects small quantities of cough syrup from various wholesalers in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and then smuggles it in their personal car to Mumbai. They operate in the same way in Gujarat and south India." He added, "Before this case, we had also bust gangs in Dharavi and Nalasopara, which used to smuggle the stock from Delhi-NCR. Now, we are trying to find a link between the gangs that have been busted so far. There are many wholesalers and bulk buyers who are on the FDA's radar."
