3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Aug 14, 2026 11:33 AM IST
Stressing the Centre’s commitment to track down drug traffickers hiding abroad, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has extradited fugitive drug kingpin Virender Singh Basoya from the UAE. Basoya was wanted in connection with a Rs 13,000-crore drug seizure case investigated by the Delhi Police.
In 2024, pharmaceutical companies in South India and Gujarat – including five legitimate and three shell firms – were allegedly used to transport 1,289 kg of cocaine and 40 kg of hydroponic Thai marijuana smuggled in by a Dubai-based cartel led by Basoya to Delhi. Delhi Police’s Special Cell busted the racket.
In a post on X, Shah said, “Modi govt is relentlessly tracking down drug traffickers hiding abroad and destroying their entire ecosystem with a ruthless approach.” “Creating a new milestone in the policy of zero tolerance against narcotics, the NCB secured the return of fugitive drug kingpin Virender Singh Basoya from the UAE. By tracing the criminal through a top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top approach, our agencies have once again proven that no matter where drug traffickers hide, they cannot escape the long arm of Indian law,” he added.
How the cartel worked
In its chargesheet, the Delhi Police Special Cell named 19 people allegedly linked to the cartel. Of them, 14 have been arrested – including Tushar Goyal, an heir to two publishing houses. The remaining five, including Basoya, had been declared proclaimed offenders – meaning they are on the run. “Basoya, the Dubai-based businessman allegedly funding the cartel operation and his younger son, Rishab Basoya, 25; and other associates identified as Ritik Bajaj, 36; Pramod, 50; and Vikas Rane, 49, were declared proclaimed offenders,” an officer said.
On October 1, 2024, 562 kg of cocaine was seized in Mahipalpur in South Delhi, and police arrested Goyal along with three others. Then, on October 10, 208 kg of cocaine was seized from a shop in Ramesh Nagar, West Delhi. The third seizure was made on October 13, when Special Cell officers and the Gujarat Police recovered 518 kg of cocaine worth Rs 5,000 crore in the international market during a raid at a firm called Aavkar Drugs in Gujarat’s Ankleshwar.
According to police, the seized drugs were all part of a consignment that the cartel operated by Virender Basoya allegedly smuggled in. Police said the drugs were transported as pharmaceutical chemicals consignments to the Avakar factory in Gujarat from South India. “The drugs came to India at multiple locations from South America via Dubai. They were to arrive at Aavkar in multiple consignments by road to be refined and processed,” a police officer said. The drugs were then moved out of Gujarat as medical consignments and were handed over, on paper, to an alleged fake company, Pharma Solutions Services, police said. “Then they were transported as medicine packages of Pharma Solutions Services again via road to Delhi-NCR,” the officer said.