The Thane Police on Saturday named yesteryear Bollywood actress Mamta Kulkarni, wife of Kenya-based drug smuggler Vicky Goswami, as one of the key accused in the much-discussed Rs2,000 crore Ephedrine drug haul case. Goswami is already one of the 17 accused in the case. Ten of them are in judicial custody.
Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh told the media, “We have included the name of Mamta Kulkarni in the list of accused in the case. After obtaining necessary warrants from the courts, we will write to the Interpol wing of the CBI to issue a Red Corner Notice against the ex-actress and her drug smuggler-husband.”
Singh said that Mamta had been named as one of the key accused in the case, based on arrested couple’s statements recorded before a Magistrate and also inputs received from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the ex-actress’ alleged involvement in the international Ephedrine drug racket.
The Thane Police chief said that Mamta and Vicky had attended two meetings — one in Hotel Bliss of Mombasa in Kenya on January 8, 2016 and another at Burj Khalifa in Dubai on April 8, 2016 — at which logistics of Ephedrine smuggling were discussed.
Goshwami’s aide Dr Abdulla, two of his associates from Saburi Pharma company, some persons from India and a couple of international drug smugglers from Morocco attended the meetings.
Incidentally, the second drug cartel meeting was held in Kenya just two days prior to the arrest of a Nigerian by the Thane Police on April 10. The police seized half a kilogram of the drug from the Nigerian that led to more arrests, a raid on Avon life Science’s unit at Solapur in western Maharashtra and the subsequent busting of entire drug racket.
While the police seized 3 kg of drug from Powale and Sukhadre, they recovered 5 kg of the Ephedrine power from a peddlar named Swamy. The investigators seized 7.60 kg of drug from the production manager of the factory Rajendra Jagdamba Prasad Dimri, while a major chunk of the 18.50 tonnes drugs recovered was seized from Solapur factory which they traced with the help of arrested earlier.
On their part, the Thane Police have so far arrested eight persons in connection with the seizure of 18.62 tonnes of Ephedrine, a medicine used to manufacture a party drug crystal meth. According to police, one kg of meth costs $50,000. In the process of conversion of the Ephedrine into meth, there was a loss of 30 per cent.
The investigations have revealed that nearly 100 kg Ephedrine was already manufactured at Avon life Science’s init at Solapur and sent by air to Kenya for which they had already received payment through hawala. The payment thus received was handed over to the agent at Mohammad Ali Road and these details are being probed into.
Police said that the key players behind the drug racket had finalised the modalities for the drug deal under which a specific quantity of around 1,000 kg would be supplied by Avon to Kenya to be converted into meth to be sold in the market.
According to the reports, it was also agreed that Vicky Goswami and Dr Abdulla would get 33 per cent of share in the profit from sale of meth, while Manoj Jain and Puneet Shringi would get 33 per cent. The remaining 33 per cent would go to Kishore Rathod and Jai Mukhi. Jain, Shringi and Mukhi have already been arrested, while Vicky and Rathod are absconding accused in the case.
Such was the influence that Vicky had over others involved in the drug racket that at one stage, M/s Avon life Sciences was thinking of offering 11 lakh shares at Rs 26 per share (being sold in the market at Rs 35 to 40 per share) to his wife Mamta Kulkarni and induct her onto the company’s board of directors.
Meanwhile, the Thane Police are contemplating adding the names of Dr Abdulla and two of his associates from Saburi Pharma company as accused in the case.
Arrested in 1997 for trafficking 11.5 tonnes of mandrax valued at $6 million in the international market, Vicky spent 15 years in a Dubai prison. It was during his incarceration that Vicky married Mamta.
After his release from Dubai jail, Vicky reported to India for some time. He later flew to Kenya, where he is currently living in Nairobi with his actress-wife. Considered drug kingpin is south-east Asia, Vicky is also a known name in narcotic business circles of Zambia, where he had been arrested way back in 1983 at the lusaka Airport while boarding an international flight with a box of Mandrax tablets. Subsequently, he spent some time in Johannesburg, from where he ran drug trafficking business with the help of some of the narcotics department officials.
Unconfirmed reports say that Mamta used to run a prominent hotel and real estate businesses of Vicky when the latter was cooling his heels behind bars. She also used to work as a front person for Vicky and meet with clients in Singapore, US, Dubai and South Africa when the latter had gone into hiding to avoid Interpol red corner notice issued against him
Having acted in prominent actors including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar, Mamta was a big draw in the nineties. Between 1991 and 2002, she acted in nearly 40 films mainly in Hindi. She also acted in Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil.
Some of the hit films she acted in were “Karan Arjun’ (1995), Aashiq Awara (1993), Waqt Hamara Hai (1993), Krantiveer (1994), Sabse Bada Khiladi (1995), Baazi (1996), China Gate (1998), Beqabu (1995), and Chhupa Rustam (2001).
