Heroin haul: Hunt on for chemical experts from Iran

NEW DELHI: Investigation into the seizure of 355kg of heroin from a container in Mumbai has led police to launch a manhunt for two Iranians who had been sent to India to extract the contraband from licorice (mulethi) roots and process it into saleable and consumable powdered heroin.
The two Afghan nationals arrested in the case told police that such chemical experts, referred in drug circles as doctors, often flew down to India on tourist or medical visas just for this task.The chemical experts visited the makeshift labs created by the modules in different states and initiated the process of extraction.
“The chemical experts boiled the mulethi sticks in water infused with chemicals. The roots were taken out and the “heroin water” was filtered out in a beaker using cotton cloth. It was put through another process involving undisclosed chemicals wherein the water was vapourised and the heroin was left behind,” said an officer.
Elaborating on the Iran connection, sources said the container was sent from Shahid Rajaei Port by one Jalali, who was running a firm named Futuria in Ajman, UAE.
Police suspect the two absconding chemical experts are associates of Jalali, who worked for the deputy chiefs of the heroin cartel, Ahmed Shah and Baba Jani. Shah is an Afghan national based in Pakistan and has been coordinating the delivery of shipments via Iran using a web of firms.
On September 16, Special Cell located the container at a Mumbai port with 22 tonnes of licorice sent from Iran. Among the genuine licorice roots, the cartels had mixed heroin-coated roots, which weighed around 355kg and were worth around Rs 2,000 crore. The recovery was made on the information given by two Afghan smugglers, Rahimullah Rahimi and Mustafa Stanikzai, who were arrested on September 5 with a huge quantity of methamphetamine.
This was the second consecutive narco-terror operation within a month of Union home minister Amit Shah’s orders to police chief Sanjay Arora for initiating a crackdown on these cartels and registering an FIR under UAPA. Rahimi and Stanikzai were booked under this stringent Act.