Mumbai: Mumbai crime branch’s Anti-Narcotic Cell (ANC) has grilled a Wadala-based scrap-dealer for his alleged role in fabricating and supplying four pieces of a key-manufacturing equipment, known as “a reactor”, which used in making a banned narcotic mephedrone aka ‘meow meow’ at a Hubli-based factory for catering to the city’s clientele.

The scrap-dealer, whose statement has been recorded by the ANC, revealed that he received Rs 5 lakh to fabricate and supply the reactors, which regulate temperature during the making of the synthetic drug, from the trafficking network that set up the factory.

Based on leads provided by two accused associated with the network, the ANC arrested its key alleged Mumbai supplier, Firdaus Razzaq, who is being grilled to zero in on the unidentified controller/s of the network.  “The scrap-dealer revealed during interrogations that he had no clue the reactors supplied by him would be used to make mephedrone. He claimed that he had been told the reactors were needed for the regular industrial operations,” said an ANC source. The ANC is verifying the truth in the scrap-dealer’s claims to take a call on his status in the probe.

The police had raided the Hubli-based factory located at Hangal last month after seizing 10.2 kilograms of mephedrone worth Rs 2.4 crore from the car of a former pharmaceutical firm employee, Pravin Waghela, in Chember last month. The seizure had led to the search for the contraband’s source, which led to the factory. “The factory was set up at a spot surrounded by agrarian fields in the name of making soap but the locals had later complained to the police about the  stench of chemicals that emanated from it,” said the source. “The controllers of the narcotics syndicate, whose mephedrone was seized last month and had set up the factory, are unknown right now,” said DCP Shivdeep Lande, ANC.  

The police had seized mephedrone worth 7 kg from the Hubli factory and also arrested its operator, Rajkumar Naik, the man who was allegedly tasked by the trafficking network to make mephedrone there with the help of legally available precursor chemicals. A post-graduate in organic chemistry from Karnataka’s Dharwad University in 2006, Naik had worked in several firms as a research scientist before he got pencilled in for the mephedrone job. “After two-three attempts, Rajkumar managed to make mephedrone based on the formula he was given. It was Waghela who approved of what he had made,” said the source.