Narco-Hawala cartel backed by Turkey-based smuggler busted – The Tribune

The Amritsar police busted an international narco-hawala racket backed by Turkey-based smuggler Navpreet Singh, alias Nav Bhullar, with the arrest of his three operatives leading to the seizure of narcotics, a huge amount of hawala money and a cash counting machine from them.

Those arrested have been identified as Gurdeep Singh, alias Saab (35), a taxi driver from Amritsar, Pardeep Sharma (29), a garment shop worker from Bikaner in Rajasthan, and Mani Sharma (36), a Ludhiana-based garments businessman.

The police also recovered 1.10 kg heroin, Rs 1.06 crore hawala money, including Rs 84.02 lakh in cash and Rs 22 lakh frozen in bank accounts, a cash counting machine, besides impounding their car (without registration number), said DGP Gaurav Yadav here on Monday.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that Gurdeep was operating the local network of hawala and drugs smuggling at the behest of Nav Bhullar, who had not only provided him a house to use it as a hideout in Amritsar, but also arranged logistic support to run the cartel,” he said, adding that Nav Bhullar was wanted in big hauls of drug and hawala cases by different Central and state agencies.

Giving details, Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said CIA staff received specific intelligence input about the functioning of the hawal cartel and dispatched the teams which arrested Gurdeep from near Lake Heart School located on Ram Tirath Road here. The cops seized the drug consignment along with the drug money from his possession.

“During Gurdeep’s interrogation, names of Pardeep Sharma and Mani Sharma cropped up who had delivered drug money of Rs 5 lakh each. Following their disclosure, the police successfully tracked and arrested both the suspects,” Bhullar said, adding that further investigation was in progress.

A case under the NDPS Act was registered and further investigation is underway to expose the entire nexus.