Foreign peddlers hard nut to crack

Hyderabad: The anti-drug game is going international for law enforcement agencies in the State, who are now racking their brains on how to track down key suspects in international drug cartels with the latter using international SIM cards for communications. The SIM cards, sourced from other countries, are used for either directly communicating with gang […]

Hyderabad: The anti-drug game is going international for law enforcement agencies in the State, who are now racking their brains on how to track down key suspects in international drug cartels with the latter using international SIM cards for communications.

The SIM cards, sourced from other countries, are used for either directly communicating with gang members or through WhatsApp, with both being tough for the police to track.

The Hyderabad City Police had recently seized around 100 grams of cocaine and found out that the main kingpin of the racket, Tony, a Nigerian national, was using an international SIM card. His movements and conversations were difficult to be tracked easily. After much effort, the police managed to arrest two of his accomplices, though Tony is still at large. A special team has been formed to coordinate with other central law enforcement agencies to nab him.

“Drug traffickers of the top rung are using international SIM cards and WhatsApp to communicate. So there is some difficulty in tracking them down. Nevertheless, efforts continue to track them down and somewhere they will commit a mistake and that will prove advantageous for us,” a senior police official said.

Usually, local telecom service providers share call details with the police for local numbers. However, getting details of international numbers is bit difficult, he said.

In several cases, the police probe ended with officials ending up catching the third or second rung members of the gangs while the prime suspects, who although were staying in India, managed to give the police a slip. At times, they fly off to some other country and a few months later, surface in some other Indian city to resume their activities.

“Tracking their entry or exit into the country using passports is also difficult as they are known by their pseudo names. Unless they are caught and their passport details are with us, it is not possible to keep a watch on their entry or exit into the country,” said another official.

Not only drug traffickers, those involved in other illegal activities including smuggling of gold and foreign currency, wildlife smuggling and other major criminal activities, are now using SIM cards acquired from foreign countries.

“In certain cases, social media platforms like Facebook messenger, SnapChat and others are used,” said a Cybercrime police official.

The local police are coordinating with central agencies in certain cases to take up the cases with other foreign countries or with the Interpol.

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