The Odisha Police on Monday busted a cough syrup smuggling racket in Bolangir under its Mission Cough Syrup drive. The gang was dealing with illegal Eskuf Syrup.

The police have arrested 38 people smuggling Eskuf Syrup. According to the reports, the Bolangir Town Police also seized 12,960 bottles of Eskuf Syrup worth Rs 35 lakhs, one country-made mouser, one Mahindra XUV, two pickup vans, one Tata Ace van, 2 bikes, Rs 7,500 in cash, 17 mobile phones, gold, and other incriminating articles.

Bolangir SP Nitin Kusalkar deployed a special team to Bolangir, Bargarh, and Cuttack districts as a part of Mission Cough Syrup.

First, 45 cartons of illegal cough syrup were seized near Sudapada overbridge from a four-wheeler while being smuggled to Bolangir. Around 40 boxes of illegal cough syrup were seized from a warehouse in Cuttack.

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The police arrested 35 criminals including Sana Negi and Prashant Kheti, two major players in the racket. The police said a notorious criminal and drugs smuggler Prashan Kheti was apprehended from the vehicle along with the seizure of a country-made mouser, 2 swords, Rs 7,500, etc. from him.

These drug traffickers sell illegal cough syrup to the local youth by smuggling it from Kolkata through Cuttack to several districts in Odisha. There is a huge amount of profit in this business mainly due to the fact that young people of the middle age are using this drug. A bottle of cough syrup is bought for only Rs 15 and is being sold for Rs 150 to Rs 200.

Bolangir Police said this was the largest racket of the cough syrup mafia to have been busted.

Last week, police seized 3,000 bottles of cough syrup from a truck in Assam’s Karimganj district along the Assam-Tripura border.

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