Gujarat is now becoming a destination for cryptocurrencies and the dark web after being a hot spot for drug smuggling.
Four persons have been arrested by the Gujarat police over a period of one week wherein dealers from Ahmedabad had imported 100 kilograms of drugs from the US and other parts of the country via air cargo courier in the last two years.
Ahmedabad district Superintendent of Police, Virendrasingh Yadav said that the main accused, identified as Vandit Patel, 27, with his aide, Parth Sharma, 32, had contracted US-based suppliers through the dark web and had paid them Rs 4 crores in cryptocurrencies to get drugs. While two alleged peddlers, identified as Vipal Goswami and Jil Parate, were arrested on November 22.
He further said that Patel and Sharma were held on November 17 with drugs worth Rs 3.5 lakh.
Vandit Patel became an addict in 2012 and he entered this illegal trade and started getting drugs via air cargo from the US, the Netherlands and parts of India including Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh, as per Yadav.
While Patel had used over 50 addresses in various cities of Gujarat and Rajasthan to take nearly 300 drug deliveries, zeroing in on houses where no one was staying for long.
He had also sent drugs from the US to his connections in China and New Zealand.