Solving Crime: How an informer's tip-off about ‘special salt' helped Mumbai police bust party drugs racket, seize contraband worth Rs 24 crore

Indian Express

01-05-2025

The Mumbai police are known for cracking serious crimes, high-profile cases, and keeping a check on organised crime syndicates using their extensive network of khabaris (informers). With the help of reliable information shared by such informers, the city police have carried out several successful operations.
In one such instance around 13 years ago, the Mumbai Crime Branch busted a party drugs racket, leading to the seizure of contraband worth nearly Rs 24 crore, while working on a reliable khabari's tip-off about a 'special salt' being sold in the market.
From Civil Engineering to a pharma company
The Crime Branch's investigation into this narcotics case is linked to Vipul Saxena, a resident of Bihar's Samastipur district. A diploma holder in Civil Engineering, Saxena came to Mumbai in 2007 with a dream of making it big. He tried his luck in the real estate sector and worked hard, but didn't get much success. This prompted him to switch to the pharmaceutical sector, and he joined a pharma company.
While working at the pharma company, Saxena read about medicines and drugs on the Internet. During this time, he also discovered that there is a high demand for amphetamine, a psychotropic substance and also a party drug.
According to the police, Saxena also came in contact with some pharmaceutical companies in Bengaluru during his stint at the company. He selected one of the medicine-producing companies, which was on the verge of shutting down. Saxena convinced a few people working at the company, and allegedly got a large amount of amphetamine cooked at the Bengaluru company's factory at a cheaper cost. He then started making a list of dealers who would buy amphetamine from him.
Soon, he allegedly dispatched samples of the synthetic party drug to the dealers, but none of them showed any interest, citing its extremely poor quality. And, the packets of amphetamine remained at Saxena's office in Goregaon.
Salt vs salt
A youngster who worked at a tailoring shop next to Saxena's office would often frequent his office. During one of his visits to the office, he observed that Saxena covered the white crystal powder packets with some clothes as if he were hiding them. This prompted the young man to realise that the packets contained some sort of 'special salt', and that it was expensive. He then decided to steal a packet, and sell it.
While Saxena was out one day, the young man stole one packet from his office, and put a similar-looking packet of common salt, which he had bought from a grocery store. He cut open the stolen packet but couldn't figure out what it was. He realised it was a sort of drug, but had no idea that the packet he was holding in his hand was worth lakhs of rupees.
The young man then, in desperation to sell it, started looking for customers in the market, spreading the word that he had a big stock of a 'special salt'. While he was looking to sell the drugs, a police informer got to know about it, and tipped off a Crime Branch officer about the 'special salt'.
The police then nabbed the youngster, and when they asked him about the antecedents of the packet, he led them to Saxena's Goregaon office. From there, the police seized amphetamine worth nearly Rs 24 crore. Saxena was subsequently arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, he secured bail in the case after months.
Crime Branch sources said the contraband seized from Saxena's office also had the 'real' salt packet that the young man had kept there as a cover for his theft.