Mundra drugs seizure case: Delhi nightclub owner held

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate arrested Harpreet Singh Talwar, a known figure in Delhi‘s party circuit who once held the nightclub franchise of Playboy Club, Wednesday for smuggling drugs in collusion with Pakistanis and Afghan nationals allegedly aligned with ISI.Talwar, who ran the nightclub from Samrat Hotel and was linked, along with others, with the seizure of drugs worth Rs 21,000 crore by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) from Mundra port in 2021, has been accused of deploying narco money in his hospitality business.Talwar was arrested after ED carried out searches on five of his premises in the national capital. He was earlier arrested by the NIA for allegedly being one of the key members of an international drug syndicate, which had origins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and used his shell entities “in the import of narcotics and further facilitated its transport to Delhi-based Afghan nationals involved in purification and distribution of heroin in many states, including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, UP, etc”.

Talwar was recently released on bail by Gujarat HC.On Aug 13, 2021, DRI had detained two containers at Mundra port and found they had come from Kandahar in Afghanistan via Bandar Abbas port in Iran. “The containers were declared to contain semi-processed talc stones. Examination led to the seizure of 2,988 kg of heroin from the two containers,” a statement said. Follow-up searches led to the recovery of 16 kg of heroin from a godown in Delhi, 10 kg powder suspected to be cocaine and 11 kg of suspected heroin from a house in Noida.