Bengaluru: In its war against drugs, Bengaluru police on Friday arrested a head constable attached to the Sadashivanagar police station for allegedly helping three persons accused of involvement in a drug racket.
“Head Constable H. C. Prabhakar, working in Sadashivanagar police station, is arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) for abetting and helping the accused Suneesh, Hemanth, and others,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil said in a statement on Friday.
The CCB had earlier stated that Prabhakar’s role came to light after three people, including Congress Dalit leader and former minister Rudrappa Lamani’s son Darshan Lamani, were interrogated in connection with the drug case in Goa on November 9.
The police said that the trio — Hemanth, Prasidd Shetty and Suneesh Hegde — are residents of Sadashivanagar and had been in touch with Prabhakar as they feared arrest soon after the police nabbed their friend Sujay, another accused. He was caught while receiving a consignment of 500 grams of hydroponically grown ganja (hydroganja) consignment from the foreign courier centre using Bitcoins.
One gram of this substance is estimated to cost between Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 in the market and is used by high profile customers.
Hemant had fled to Kodagu, his home town, while Suneesh and Prasid Shetty had fled to Goa due to the fear of being arrested. Hemanth, who is a friend of Darshan Lamani, allegedly called him from Kodagu, seeking his help.
Darshan reportedly asked him to come to Haveri and from there both left for Goa to join Suneesh and Shetty, the police claimed.
According to the police, call records and other information gathered during the probe revealed Prabhakar was providing the accused with locations of the police team tracking them while they were absconding.
As things unravelled, Prabhakar’s involvement in the case was brought to the notice of Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant, who ordered his suspension for dereliction of duty. Prabhakar was suspended on November 12 and was evading arrest since then.
This is the third high profile arrest in the last two weeks in this case. The CCB police arresting Darshan Lamani on November 9 from Goa was the first high-profile arrest in this case.
Darshan was arrested for sheltering two of his friends, Hemanth and Suneesh, from a plush resort in Goa. The two were part of a gang that used to procure drugs through the darknet using Bitcoins.
The CCB had made a second high-profile arrest just two days ago, a 25-year-old computer programmer, Srikrishna aka Shreeki, who is said to be a “rogue hacker” of international repute. Through him this gang used to procure drugs from various countries using Bitcoins.
“He (Shreeki) hacked many websites, online gaming portals, and made illegal gains. He has also tried to hack into government websites. In some cases he has succeeded too. He successfully hacked into Karnataka e-procurement website some time ago,” the Bengaluru police commissioner said at a press conference.
Shreeki was in Amsterdam in the Netherlands for his graduate studies between 2014 and 2017. He studied in a reputed university there, but after his return, he remained unemployed due to which he got into hacking to make illegal gains.
After this he came in contact with one of the gang members and became an integral part of this eight member gang to procure hydro-ganja from foreign countries through Bitcoins and host high profile parties in resorts and pubs.
The Bengaluru police had also suspended ACP M. R. Mudavi and Head Constable Mallikarjun who were with the CCB after it came to the CCB officers’ notice that these two were instrumental in leaking information to high profile accused arrested in the Sandalwood drugs case.
