Delivery man held for supplying drugs to celebrities, govt officials

A drug peddler along with his accomplices were arrested last week

A week after the arrest of 40-year-old drug peddler Osman Anwar Ali Shaikh along with his accomplices Irfan Mubarak Shaikh, 39, and Abu Sufian Shakeel Ahmed Khan, 29, the Mumbai Crime Branch Unit 9 nabbed a delivery executive of a food delivery company for supplying mephedrone packets to various celebrities and government officials in Bandra and Andheri areas.

The 38-year-old delivery boy Abhishek Jaiprakash Vishwakarma, a resident of Jogeshwari, started supplying drugs during the lockdown to make some extra money, said a police officer, adding that he would supply at least four packets daily.

"We arrested Vishwakarma on Monday and during interrogation he told us that he had been working with the gang since the last five months. He would get Rs 200 to deliver each packet," said a Crime Branch officer.

Another officer told mid-day, "Earlier Vishwakarma would be given the names and contact details of the people to whom he had to deliver drugs but after working with the gang for a few weeks, he saved all the numbers in his cellphone." The officers have recovered 30 such numbers from his phone.

"Vishwakarma had been delivering drugs to a number of people including a person working with a music composer, a small-time TV actor, actors working for ad films and low budget movies, photographer Sachin Soni, screenwriter RR Dwivedi, MHADA officials as well as real estate agents in the city," said another officer, who added that the gang had hired him to dodge the police as he worked for a food delivery company. A police source said that those who received drugs from him might be called for questioning.

Speaking about the other arrested accused, the officer said that Osman was a driver and lived in Oshiwara, Andheri (West), Abu was a shopkeeper and resident of Jogeshwari and Irfan was a drug peddler and resident of Four Bungalows, Andheri.

"In a bid to dodge the cops, Osman and Abu would also wear T-shirts of the same food delivery company," the source added. All of them have been booked under relevant sections of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

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