Nagpur groundnut cart vendor 'Phalli' held in multi-crore MD drug racket; six arrested

Vishal alias 'Phalli' Pruthvilal Gupta (25), who once sold groundnuts from a roadside cart in Nagpur and barely earned Rs 300 a day, is now in police custody on charges of running a multi-crore MD (mephedrone) trade. The hands that once packed groundnuts in paper cones went on to hand out packets of drugs.

Police investigation has found that, in a hurry to make money, he assembled a group of unemployed youths and built a supply chain for narcotics in Nagpur and surrounding areas. The probe has found that in just five years he built up a multi-crore operation of buying, selling and supplying drugs.

His father had set up the cart in the hope that his son would work and help run the household. But through some of the people who came to the cart, he got acquainted with the illegal drug trade. At the start, he was paid Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 for ferrying the contraband and mixing other substances into it, the investigation has found. Once he got hooked on quick money, the groundnut cart was left behind and he allegedly took to crime.

According to police, Phalli gradually built up his own system. He lured unemployed youths into his net to bring drugs from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to Nagpur and deliver them to local customers. Senior Police Inspector Vinayak Golhe of the Crime Branch and his team traced the alleged chain and took action. Cases have been registered against about 17 of his associates in the matter, and six people have been arrested.

The investigation has also found that Phalli has a diary with entries of transactions. These entries are likely to yield clues about drug suppliers, customers and money transfers. He kept changing mobile phones and SIM cards to evade the police, which made tracing his movements a challenge for them. After he went absconding, he visited the Koradi temple with a childhood friend, Saheli alias Sonu, and then headed towards Tamil Nadu.

According to information that has emerged in the investigation, the plan was to mix other substances into MD worth about Rs 1.5 crore brought from Rajasthan to increase its quantity, and to sell it in Nagpur to earn Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 3 crore. However, the full details of this alleged deal and the total transactions involved will become clear only through the investigation.

Police have found that Phalli avoided coming forward himself and stayed in touch with associates using different mobile phones and numbers. Police claim that Saheli alias Sonu, a childhood friend, handled the accounts. Questioning her will therefore be important in unravelling the entire chain of money transactions, suppliers and customers.