Chandigarh: Punjab Police on Saturday claimed to have nabbed - in a joint operation with Central agencies - an international drug smuggler identified as Simranjot Sandhu, a kingpin of 487 kg cocaine smuggling case of 2020 in Germany.
Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav said that the development came after investigations of linkages carried out by the Moga district police into the arrest of a local drug smugglers identified as Beant Singh and Sukhdeep Singh, who were arrested with 1kg heroin on June 16, 2024.
On their statement, Moga police had nominated Mandeep Singh - presently based in the USA, and Simranjot Sandhu, 30, who was allegedly searching for purchasers for heroin in Punjab on the directions of the former.
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DGP Yadav said that the accused Simranjot is a lynchpin of an international drug cartel and is wanted in Germany for drug offences.
Police said that during the follow-up investigations into the 1kg heroin recovery case, Moga police has arrested accused Simranjot, a native of village Gokhuwal in Batala, from village Bhaloor in Moga.
Simranjot, who went to Germany in 2002, was working as a taxi driver and during the period from March 2020 and June 2020, the accused had stored and transported at least 487 kg cocaine, 66 kg marijuana and 10 kg hashish being supplied from Brazil and other South American countries and landed at port of Hamburg, Germany. The accused used to communicate on an encrypted mobile app ‘Encrochat’ through which a drug network was unearthed by the Germany police, he said.
Later, the accused was convicted for 8 years and 6 months under section 29 of the Narcotic Drugs Act by Germany courts on February 28, 2022, but without completing sentence he fled away to Dubai in July 2023 and then came to India in September 2023 and stayed at various places in India.
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