21-year-old held with opium worth Rs 55 lakh

Ghaziabad: A 21-year-old man was arrested from the service road near the railway station in the Muradnagar area on Friday for smuggling opium to Delhi-NCR, Haryana, and Punjab. Around 2.5 kg of opium, worth more than Rs 55 lakh, was recovered from Rahul Kumar Dangi, a resident of Jharkhand, who allegedly went from being a tractor driver to a drug smuggler in pursuit of financial relief, a police official said on Saturday.Rahul told the police that the promise of quick and substantial money through opium smuggling became an escape from poverty. "Rahul, a Class 12 pass-out, was working as a tractor driver in his village fields, earning Rs 300 a day. His family was struggling to make ends meet when his school friend Pritam, also from Jharkhand, lured him into the smuggling world with the promise of a better income. After joining the smuggling gang, he earned Rs 20,000 for every trip he made to another state to deliver opium," said Sachchidanand, additional deputy commissioner of police (Crime).
Rahul also mentioned that after working for the gang for a while, he started smuggling opium from Jharkhand to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi-NCR on his own for better profits.
"Rahul said that the demand for opium has increased in the Delhi-NCR area, and he has been smuggling opium for a year. Depending on the amount of opium he needs to carry, he takes either a bus or a train, and each time he uses different routes to avoid getting caught," said Sachchidanand, ADCP (Crime).