New Delhi, Sept. 18 -- The Delhi Police Special Cell, in a joint operation with the Vadodara City Crime Branch, has arrested a 31-year-old alleged member of the Rohit Godara-Mahender Delana gang and seized two kg of heroin of Pakistani origin, valued at around Rs 12 crore, officials said on Friday.

The accused, Kuldeep Swami, was wanted in a Rs 10-crore extortion case registered by the Vadodara City Crime Branch, in which the first instalment of the extortion money was allegedly to be collected in Delhi, they said.

Acting on intelligence shared by the Gujarat Police, a joint team intercepted Swami in Kucha Ghasi Ram, Chandni Chowk, around 5.30 pm on September 12, police said. A currency note allegedly used as a hawala verification token and keys to a car were recovered from him.

During interrogation, Swami allegedly disclosed that a consignment of narcotics had been concealed in the vehicle parked in Jai Vihar, Phase-1, Najafgarh. The team searched the car and recovered four packets containing around two kg of heroin hidden in a specially fabricated cavity near the spare-tyre area of the boot, officials said.

A case under Sections 21 and 25 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was subsequently registered at the Special Cell police station on September 13, they said.

According to the investigation, the gang allegedly operated a network that combined extortion-money collection and drug trafficking. Communication between operatives was carried out through social media platforms using pre-decided code words, live locations and photographs of currency notes to authenticate cash or drug handovers, police said.

Swami allegedly worked as a courier for the network and collected extortion amounts ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 50 lakh per transaction across Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan. He was allegedly paid Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 for each assignment, officials said.

Police said Swami travelled to Amritsar on September 5 to collect heroin for Delana, concealing it in his car before returning to Delhi.

He allegedly joined the network after suffering losses of over Rs 50 lakh in commodity trading. Investigators are probing links with gangster Rohit Godara, hawala routes and other associates.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.