City Police in Visakhapatnam deny meddling in the drug seizure case

In the middle of political party jabs, City Police Commissioner Ravi Shankar refuted claims that the state government is exerting pressure on the investigative team looking into the Thursday drug case. Speaking to the media on Friday, Shankar said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was looking into the issue as a whole, and that the city police had gone there in response to a request from the Customs SP. The CP went on to explain that the police had left the scene because technical evidence needed to be gathered for a confirmatory test conducted by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, negating the requirement for a dog squad.

The AP government’s and business leaders’ participation caused the probe to be delayed, according to the CBI authorities’ FIR. But the CP explained it as technical jargon. He said that a disturbance occurred during the process of recording a video, and the CBI included this in the FIR as it was a technological procedure.

“The Police Commissionerate does not even have jurisdiction over the container terminal,” he said. We got there because a dog squad had been requested by Customs SP to detect the narcotics.”

For peddlers, Visakhapatnam serves as a transit hub as it offers transportation from Vizag to any location in the nation. Under the watchful eye of the police, the CP made it clear that drug use is almost nonexistent in Andhra Pradesh.

“Gruda Operation”

In the meantime, the CBI announced that it had detained a shipping container at the Visakhapatnam Port as part of “Operation Garuda,” its global campaign against organized drug cartels, based on information obtained through Interpol and with help from the Customs Department in Visakhapatnam.

According to the CBI, the container was scheduled for delivery to Visakhapatnam from “Santos Port, Brazil” on behalf of a consignee, a private firm called Sandhya Aqua, which is situated in Visakhapatnam. The shipper had said that there are 1,000 25 kilogram bags of “inactive dried yeast” non the aforementioned container.

The package had been seized, and a formal complaint had been filed against the consignee and unidentified other parties. “However, on preliminary examination through the narcotics substances detection mechanisms, it appears that the material shipped contains narcotic drugs mixed with inactive dried yeast,” the CBI officials stated.

According to the CBI, the investigation shows that an international criminal network is involved in importing drugs and blending them with other substances, or cutting agents.