Drugs case surfaces in Vijayawada

Vijayawada: The arrest of an employee of a courier service located in Bharati Nagar here by the customs officials of Bengaluru brought the presence of drugs to light in Vijayawada city.

Guttula Teja of DST courier, Bharati Nagar, was arrested for sending a parcel with his Aadhaar number. Teja told the police that a person from Sattenapalli of Guntur district (now Palnadu district) came to the courier office on January 31, 2022 and handed over a parcel. Saying that his Aadhaar card number was not visible clearly, the person asked Teja to use his Aadhaar card to send the parcel.

It may be mentioned here that Aadhaar card Xerox copy is used for sending parcels through courier. Teja, a resident of Prasadampadu, Vijayawada, sent the parcel with his Aadhaar card number as proof. Teja claimed that he was innocent and a person by name Kondaveeti Gopi Sai of Sattenapalli gave the parcel to send it abroad.

However, it came to know that the parcel contains 4,496 grams of banned drug of Ephedrine. The parcel consignment was with an address to Australia, but it went to Canada, said Khadar Basha, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Vijayawada central zone.

In a press released here on Sunday, ACP Khadar Basha said the parcel came back to Bengaluru where the customs officials noticed the parcel contains the banned drug. DST courier has asked Teja to go to Bengaluru and get back the parcel. When Teja went to Bengaluru to collect the parcel, the customs officials took him into custody on April 27. Later, the customs officials have announced that Teja was arrested and information was passed on to his family members in Vijayawada. ACP Khadar Basha said three teams were formed to investigate the case. One team went to Sattenapalli to identify Kondaveeti Gopi, who gave the parcel to Teja in courier office in Vijayawada. Another team was sent to Bengaluru to investigate the case. The third team was sent to Hyderabad to investigate the details from a courier agency.