Dahanu fishermen held with 8kg of charas worth

Thane: The Thane crime branch officials on Thursday arrested a 42-year-old fisherman with eight kg of charas (hashish) worth ₹80 lakh at illicit markets. The accused person claimed that his brother had found the abandoned drug packet which washed ashore at Dahanu beach a few months ago and they planned to make good money out of it by selling it in small amounts.
The accused identified as Abhay Parshuram Pagdhare, 42, is a fisherman from Kasa village in Dahanu taluka in Palghar district. Vikas Ghodke, the senior inspector of crime branch unit V, had received reliable information that a suspect was likely to come to Majiwada junction on Ghodbunder Road in Thane along with some narcotics to further sell in Mumbai. The team laid a trap and nabbed Pagdhare. The search of his bag revealed 8.082 kg of charas.
During the investigation, the team found that Pagdhare and his brother were on the boat when this packet of charas washed up on the seashore and that it was part of a large drug consignment which was off-loaded in the sea off the Konkan coast in August and September 2023 and it had washed up on different beaches in Ratnagiri, Raigad and Palghar districts.
Over 278 kg of charas was found on seven different beaches of Ratnagiri from August 14 to August 22. Later, 175 packets of charas weighing a total of 209.13 kg worth ₹8.36 crore were found on five beaches on the Raigad coast. In the same way, some of these packets also drifted and were found in the coastal areas of Gujarat. Then the police were investigating and looking at the possibility of the involvement of a boat that sank in the area. But so far nothing conclusive has been found about the source of these drug packets.
An officer from Raigad police said, “Several fishermen helped us to get these packages. Some of them handed over the packets, but there was a high possibility that not all of the fishermen had given them or informed us of receiving the same packets. Later on, the investigation was taken up by the coastal authorities, the Customs to find the ship of such consignment.”
In this Thane case, an officer said, “We are looking for a wanted accused in this case who has given this charas to this Pagdhare. Earlier too, we had arrested some accused with small amounts of charas who had sourced it from Dahanu fishermen. Further investigations are going on.”