Drug ring had financial control in Australia

The global Internet drug ring being run by Agra-based doctor Brij Bhushan Bansal had its financial control in Australia where an accused had created intricate systems to receive payment via the Web and distribute it to others involved in the racket.

Twenty persons, including six from India, have been arrested so far in coordinated worldwide raids conducted by American Drug Enforcement Agency. In India, DEA was assisted by the Narcotics Control Bureau.

Officials of NCB and DEA believe Australian Shakleton was the man who held all the global strands of the racket together.

Shakleton managed the Web sites through which orders were taken for supply of narcotics, steroids and other psychotropic drugs. He collected the payment through credit cards, arranged the supply of the drugs and then sent money to others, including Bansal who supplied the drugs from India.

After the racket was smashed, Shakleton fled to Europe where enforcement agencies are on his trail, NCB sources said.

Bansal, the main supplier, was arrested in Agra on Thursday. While his son Akhil was held in the US, his daughter Shivani Aggarwal was arrested in Jaipur.

Shivani's husband Yatin and father-in-law

Kishan Aggarwal were also arrested.

Over 500,000 tablets of psychotropic substances and prescription drugs like Valium and Diazepam worth crores of rupees were recovered from them, NCB sources said.

NCB Deputy Director General Rajiv Walia said more raids were likely to be carried out as part of the mop-up operations in the coming days in various parts of the country.

DEA's 'Operation Cyber Chase', which resulted in the unearthing of the global racket, was a year-long Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation that targeted international Internet pharmaceutical traffickers operating in the US, India, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.

Besides India and the US, arrests were made in San Jose and Costa Rica also.

According to the sources, Bansals allegedly smuggled controlled substances into the US from India and other countries. These were then re-packaged in the US and distributed in America and other parts of the world.

Since July 2003, they allegedly distributed approximately 2.5 million dosage units of Schedule II-V pharmaceutical controlled substances, including Vicodin (hydrocodone), anabolic steroids, and amphetamines, per month.