Cough syrup smuggling racket to B’desh busted in Bengal’s Malda; Rs 2.40 crore seized from trader’s home

Kolkata, Aug 3 (IANS) In a nightlong operation that began Sunday night, the police have busted a cough syrup smuggling racket to Bangladesh in West Bengal’s Malda district and recovered a large amount of cash and gold from the residence of a local businessman in the Mangalhat area.

Three currency-counting machines were used to count the cash seized from the businessman’s residence, and at the end of the counting, the total seized cash was found to be Rs 2,40,97,380. Apart from that, around 20 grams of gold with an estimated market value of Rs 2.80 lakh and a laptop were also seized from the residence of the businessman, sources aware of the development said.

At the same time, another team from Malda district police conducted a raid and search operations in the Khaihatta area of the district. The search continued till 4 a.m. on Monday and 9,000 bottles of banned cough syrup were seized.

The police arrested a total of three in connection with the cash-gold seizure.

The arrested persons have been identified as Pintu Sarkar, Gopal Chaki and Sushant Halder. All of them are local residents. They will be presented at a district court in Malda later in the day, and the public prosecutor will seek their police custody.

The residence from where the cash and gold have been seized is owned by an individual, Dilip Saha. However, the flat was being rented for quite some time by Pintu Sarkar, a medicine dealer by profession.

Last month, a large quantity of banned cough syrup was recovered from the Mehendipara area of​​ Dakshin Dinajpur district just before they were being smuggled to neighbouring Bangladesh, where such cough syrups are in huge demand as an intoxicating substance.

The cops then seized around 1,500 bottles of cough syrup. The raid and search operations at the businessman’s residence in Malda were based on the follow-up investigation into the case wherein the cough syrup bottles were seized last month, an official from the Malda district police said on Monday morning.

Last week, the Birbhum district police seized Rs 28 crore in cash and 15 kilograms of gold biscuits worth around Rs 22 crore from the residence of Minar Mondal in the district, a close relative of Birbhum-based stone-quarry owner Tulu Mondal a.k.a. Mohammad Nazibuddin, who is currently absconding.

Tulu Mondal was known in the district as a close confidant of Anubrata Mondal, the former Trinamool Congress’ Birbhum district president, who had earlier spent days behind bars after being arrested first by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and then by the ED in 2022 in connection with his involvement in the cattle smuggling case.

Tulu Mondal’s name had also come up in the cattle smuggling case. He was under the ED’s watch in 2022. At that time, the Central investigators raided his house and office.

–IANS

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