The Delhi Police Crime Branch has cracked a major international arms trafficking network linked to Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and arrested 10 key operatives in the Walled City area of the national capital. Speaking to the media, Joint Commissioner (Crime) of the Delhi Police, Surendra Kumar, stated that 21 high-end, foreign-made weapons, including a sophisticated sub-machine gun and semi-automatic pistols, along with over two hundred live cartridges, were recovered during the operation. He said that the network was involved in smuggling arms into India through the Indo-Nepal border and supplying them to criminal gangs across Delhi-NCR and other states.
The Crime Branch stated that the network was operating through a well-organized system using encrypted messaging applications, VoIP calls, and frequently changing SIM cards to evade detection. They said that payments were routed through hawala channels, while handlers based in Nepal and Bangladesh coordinated the procurement of illegal arms from Pakistan. The Police said that a multi-pronged strategy involving technical surveillance, call detail analysis, and human intelligence inputs was adopted to identify and track the operatives.
The Police said that during the investigations, it was revealed that arms consignments were smuggled into India via Nepal after being transported in dismantled form and reassembled before distribution. During the operation carried out between March 13th and 24th, multiple raids were conducted across Delhi-NCR and Uttar Pradesh, leading to successive arrests and recoveries.
The Police said that the accused were involved in supplying weapons to organized criminal gangs engaged in serious crimes, such as contract killings and extortion. The Crime Branch said that further investigation is underway to trace other members of the network and dismantle the remaining links of the module.