The Indian Express ·
Drug kingpin Virender Baisoya’s son arrested after return from Dubai
Delhi court grants police seven-day custody of the 23-year-old
The son of drug kingpin Virender Baisoya, Rishabh (23), who was wanted by the Delhi Police Special Cell in connection with a drug smuggling case, was arrested soon after he landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport from Dubai on Tuesday, officials said.
According to sources, a Red Corner Notice (RCN) and a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against him were revoked on the directions of a Delhi court after his lawyer said Rishabh wanted to return to India to join the investigation. Police said he had been on the run since 2024.
On Tuesday, he was detained at the airport for a brief period, after which the Special Cell took him into custody. He was later produced before a court, which remanded him in police custody for seven days.
According to the Special Cell, Rishabh was allegedly operating from overseas at the behest of his father. In October 2024, on his father’s directions, he allegedly handed over his uncle’s car to one Jatinder Gill alias Jassi to transport a consignment of cocaine from Delhi to Punjab. Jassi was later arrested in Amritsar, and the vehicle, a Toyota Fortuner, was seized by the police with 1 kg of cocaine.
According to his lawyer Aditya Dhawan, however, Rishabh has been implicated in the case merely because he is Virender’s son.
“Since 2022, Rishabh had been pursuing an LLB (Hons) at the University of West London and was in India during his vacation, intending to return to London in October 2024 to resume his studies … As per the police chargesheet, Jatinder Gill alias Jassi does not state that the contraband was supplied to him by Rishabh. Instead, accused Tushar Goel allegedly disclosed that he had given 1 kg of contraband to Jatinder Gill for supply in Punjab,” Dhawan said.
He further said that Rishabh had avoided the investigation out of fear of being falsely implicated and arrested after his uncle was arrested despite “having no role in the case”.
When was Virender brought back?
Virender was brought back to India as part of the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB’s) ‘Operation Global-Hunt’ after he was arrested in Dubai in June. He was also arrested at the Delhi airport on August 14 by the agency soon after he landed from Dubai. He was then taken to Pune for questioning by the NCB’s Mumbai unit in connection with the seizure of 1,800 kg of mephedrone from Pune and Delhi in a case dating back to 2024.
Earlier this month, the Delhi Police secured his custody in connection with a Rs 13,000-crore drug cartel case. In its chargesheet, the Special Cell named 19 accused. Fourteen of them had been arrested, including Tushar Goyal, an heir to two publishing houses. The remaining five, including Virender and his son, had been declared proclaimed offenders as they were absconding.
The seizures in the case took place in three parts, according to the chargesheet. On October 1, 2024, 562 kg of cocaine was seized in South Delhi’s Mahipalpur. Tushar and three others were arrested. On October 10, another 208 kg of cocaine was seized from a shop in West Delhi’s Ramesh Nagar. The third seizure took place on October 13, when officers of the Special Cell and 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.
Police said the drugs were transported as consignments of pharmaceutical chemicals to the Aavkar factory in Gujarat from South India. “The drugs came into 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,” an officer said.
The drugs were then moved out of Gujarat as medical consignments and, on paper, handed over to an alleged fake company, Pharma Solutions Services, police said. “They were then transported as medicine packages of Pharma Solutions Services, again by road, to Delhi-NCR,” the officer said.