Madurai financier for ganja smugglers faces 12-year jail

CHENNAI: Facing loss in his restaurant business and even in the money lending business, a Madurai man started financing ganja smugglers who procured the contraband from Andhra Pradesh and returned the loan with interest to the financier. The sixth trip proved unlucky for the smugglers as they were caught with 303.25 kg of ganja near the Karanodai toll plaza near Chennai by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in September 2019.

Four including the financier were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by a special court in Chennai recently.

On September 20, 2019, NCB's Chennai Zonal Unit officials intercepted an SUV at the Karanodai toll plaza, in which they found over 300 kg of ganja, smuggled from Andhra Pradesh. The occupants in the car, M Manogaran, M Vijaya Kumaran and two others — T Chandran and L Ravi — who were waiting to procure a stock from the duo were caught red-handed by the NCB sleuths who arrested them.

Manogaran is from Madurai while Vijaya Kumaran and Chandran are from Theni and Ravi is from Virugambakkam, Chennai. Four months after the arrest of the quartet who were caught with the ganja stock, NCB moved in and arrested the man, P Ramesh of K Padur, Madurai, who had financed the operation.

NCB collected details of the call detail records and found that Ramesh had frequent phone calls with Manogaran and Vijaya Kumaran who went to Andhra Pradesh to procure the ganja.

He was summoned for an enquiry and during the probe, he told investigators about his role in the operation after which he was arrested, according to the prosecution.

Initially, Ramesh had started a tiffin centre in which the income was not as expected. He then ventured into the money lending business, but he was not cut out to be a loan shark and faced losses in that too.

Manogaran who had come for painting work at Ramesh's tiffin centre approached Ramesh saying that he would give him good returns if he financed his ganja business. "Ramesh had given money and conveyance five times to buy ganja from Andhra Pradesh. For a loan of Rs 5 lakh, he got Rs 7 lakh in return within a month," according to the prosecution.

In the case in which they were caught, Ramesh had given the main smugglers Rs 4 lakh in cash, an SUV and also a debit card to take care of expenses, according to the prosecution.

The defence counsels tried to find a hole in the prosecution's theory, but after perusing the evidence submitted, Principal Special Judge C Thirumagal held that the prosecution had established that Manogaran and Ramesh were in regular contact and the other accused were caught red-handed with possession of ganja.

The charges against one of the accused, T Chandran were abated as he died during the trial. The other four accused were found guilty and sentenced to 12 years of rigorous imprisonment. The court also imposed a total fine of Rs 10.4 lakh on the accused.