Wayanad: With the arrest of Prince Samson (25), a Tanzanian student-turned-drug trafficker based in Bengaluru, on Monday, the Wayanad police are hopeful that they will be able to crack the drug racket supplying narcotics to Kerala. A Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) student, Prince Samson arrived in Bengaluru in 2021 to pursue his course, which was set to be completed in 2024.
However, he attended classes only on the rarest of occasions, as he was busy building a vast network connecting students, youngsters, drug users, and peddlers across three states—Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh.
“When Kerala police nabbed him from his rented house in the suburbs of Bengaluru, he appeared as cool as a cucumber. Though we were well-armed, he offered no resistance,” said K Raghavan, Inspector of Sulthan Bathery police station, who led the operation.“There were two more people in the house with him, and they, too, were very cooperative,” Raghavan added.
“We informed him that we wanted to question him in connection with the seizure of 84 grams of MDMA from Shefeel, a native of Malappuram, on February 24 at Muthanga. He told us he was ready to cooperate with the interrogation,” the officer said.
Samson claimed he had completed his course in Bengaluru but had a few arrears. The police seized his mobile phones and collected his bank account details. His major transactions were handled through an account registered in a woman’s name. When questioned about her, he refused to provide information. During further interrogation, he initially claimed that the woman was in Manipal but later changed his statement, saying she was from Manipur.
Sulthan Bathery DySP Abdul Shereef told Onmanorama that Prince was a strange student who rarely attended class.
“We didn’t find a single book, whether a notebook or a textbook, in the house of this youth who has been studying for a BCA degree in Bengaluru,” he said.
Prince is currently lodged in the sub-jail after a local court remanded him to judicial custody. The police will seek his custody for detailed interrogation only after questioning Shefeel in the MDMA case. A request for his custody has already been submitted to the court.
Meanwhile, police are tracking the phone numbers of the people who contacted the accused after analysing call data records. Officials said that many of the contacts stored in his mobile phones are registered in Kerala.
“We hope that this case will help the police crack the drug-cyber trafficking network run by African nationals from Bengaluru, who supply drugs to Kerala,” said DySP Abdul Shereef.
According to police, Wayanad has become a preferred route for drug traffickers in recent years, as it is challenging to check the hundreds of vehicles travelling through National Highway 722, which connects Bengaluru with Kozhikode.