Mother of Kerala youth arrested in Rs 1476 cr smuggling, says son is innocent

Kochi, Oct 6 : The mother of 33-year-old Vijin Varghese, who was arrested last week by the Mumbai unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) after they recovered 198 kg of crystal methamphetamine and 9 kg high-quality cocaine worth Rs 1,476 crore, from a consignment of oranges there, said here on Thursday that her son is innocent.

Joyce, the mother of Vijin said he spoke to her earlier in the day and said that he is innocent.

“He told me he had done no wrong and that he was trapped. He said he got a call from Manzoor asking him to collect the consignment of fruits and when he was doing that, the DRI officials came and took him into custody. Both my sons are innocent and am very sure they will do no wrong,” said Joyce.

Vijin was arrested by the DRI Mumbai unit last week from Mumbai for the drugs that were found hidden in a consignment of fruits.

While he is in the DRI custody in Mumbai, his business partner Manzoor, who hails from Kasargod, is on the run.

Following the arrest of Vijin, a food unit run by him, his brother Jibin along with their partner Albin at Kalady near here under the name Yummito International Foods, was raided by a team of Kerala Excise officials on Wednesday and after inspecting hundreds of cartons of fruits that was packed, failed to get anything.

Incidentally, this big haul by the DRI was based on information received through inputs that drugs in high quantity will be smuggled into the country.

According to the inputs, contraband substances would be arriving from South Africa as part of a consignment of fruits.

The agency kept working on the input, following which on Friday evening, a team of DRI officers intercepted a truck in Vashi. The truck was carrying imported oranges.

Incidentally three days back, a high-level team of DRI had conducted an inspection at their factory at Kalady, but failed to get any leads.