Less than a week after a meth lab was busted in Chennai – cue references to iconic TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ – similar scenes played out in the national capital region. Cops raided a production centre in the Kasana industrial area of Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar, and recovered 95 kg of the drug in solid and liquid forms, as well as chemicals like acetone and red phosphorous.

The narcotics were being manufactured for sale in India and abroad, the cops said; members of a Mexican drug cartel called Jalisco New Generation, or CJNG, were involved in this operation. The CJNG began life as an offshoot of the Milenio Cartel, which is one of Mexico’s most feared; CJNG members, Mexico News Daily claimed in 2017, cannibalise new recruits who fail their training.

The joint drug op had a presence across Delhi and the national capital region.

How Delhi-Mexico Drug Cartel Was Formed

Preliminary inquiries indicate a Delhi-based businessman and, worryingly, a warden from the city’s Tihar Jail, were also part of this operation; the businessman, who has not been named yet, had been arrested by Revenue Department officials in an earlier drugs-related case.

The two met when the businessman was incarcerated in Tihar Jail, and hatched this plot. They roped in a Mumbai-based chemist for manufacturing and ‘quality control’ was outsourced to the Mexicans; a cartel member was sent to Delhi.

The businessman and the jail warden have been arrested, but it is unclear if that cartel member has also been taken into custody. A fourth, also unidentified as yet, person was also detained. All four are in police custody at this time.

A fifth arrest – an associate of the businessman – was arrested from Delhi’s Rajouri Garden.

Details of the operation, including finances and assets, are being worked out.

India’s Meth, Synthetic Drugs Crisis

This is the sixth bust by the Narcotics Control Bureau this year alone.

The other five were in Gandhinagar and Amreli in Gujarat, Jodhpur and Sirohi in Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal. The Bhopal operation yielded over 900 kg of mephedrone in solid and liquid forms, as well a frightening 7,000 kg of various chemicals and drug-making machinery.

The Chennai drugs operation – run by a chemistry student who began by peddling meth – was a ‘start-up’; 245 grams was recovered, but cops there believe it could be linked to a larger network.

READ | ‘Breaking Bad’ In Chennai: Student Cooked Meth, 7 Arrested

Another operation was busted in Assam last week; a joint op between Assamese and Manipuri police seized heroin valued at Rs 6 crore and arrested two people.

READ | Rs 6 Crore In Heroin Seized In Assam, Inter-State Cartel Busted

And, in a separate crackdown, Gujarat Police seized Rs 250 crore in drugs from Bharuch district, and arrested a local businessman, earlier raids on whose company yielded drugs worth Rs 5,000 crore.

The number of drug busts, particularly labs producing synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and mephedrone, highlights drug mafias’ shift to smaller labs being set up in industrial areas to evade cops. Smaller operations allow them to reduce, for example, waste materials and toxic fumes.

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