Ganja peddlers in Telangana adopt mobility strategy to evade police

Small-time ganja peddlers in Telangana are increasingly shifting locations and carrying smaller quantities to evade law-enforcement agencies. Using social media to contact customers, they reportedly move frequently between meeting points as police intensify their crackdown on drug networks.

Hyderabad: Small-time ganja peddlers are increasingly adopting a “mobility strategy” to evade law-enforcement agencies, shifting locations frequently and carrying only small quantities of the contraband on scooters, motorcycles or even in handbags.

With a crackdown on major ganja smugglers and bulk peddlers in Telangana, the street-level network appears to have changed its modus operandi. Small quantities are being sourced from places such as Nagpur, Odisha, Bidar, Nanded, Bihar and other locations and distributed through a highly mobile network.

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The peddlers typically remain at a particular location for only 15 to 20 minutes. After contacting known customers through Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms, they ask buyers to meet them at a designated point. After completing a few transactions, they immediately move to another location, sometimes several kilometres away.

Sources said some peddlers wrap up their operations within two to three hours, making substantial profits while reducing the chances of being intercepted. Several of them are also believed to maintain multiple social media accounts and frequently change phone numbers and meeting points.

“It is a cat-and-mouse game. Every few days, they adopt a new strategy to avoid detection. Once they feel a location has attracted police attention, they change the modus operandi,” said a law-enforcement officer involved in monitoring drug networks.

Two small-time peddlers, speaking anonymously, said mobility was now considered essential to the trade. “We cannot stay in one place for long. Customers contact us online, we hand over the packet, collect cash, and then we move after a few sales,” one of them said.

The police have also noticed that women and young girls sometimes accompany the peddlers, apparently to avoid attracting suspicion while travelling or waiting at public places.

Law-enforcement officials said the dispersal of the supply chain into smaller consignments had made detection more difficult, even as intensified action against major smugglers has disrupted traditional wholesale networks.