The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had arrested the accused K C Pillai, alias Anil Kumar, Abdulla Ahmed Mutalib and Rajendra Singh Pritam Singh Mistry at Govandi in February 1995.

On a tip-off, DRI officers had intercepted two vehicles allegedly loaded with mandrax which was to be shipped to a South African port. Bags of Ambuja cement were used as cover cargo. The officers apprehended the accused after a scuffle and seized over two tonnes of the contraband. The contraband was allegedly manufactured near Taloja, Gujarat.

Pritam Singh was the owner of the truck in which the cement had been brought. He was an absconder with a COFEPOSA order against him for transporting drugs earlier. Abdulla Mutalib was a bigger player. He had a 25-year-old career in gold andsilver landing and transporting them from sea to land.

In fact, when he was apprehended by the DRI in February 1995, he was already the main accused and absconding in the murder of a customs informer in Kasargod in Kerala. This murder in 1989 was masterminded by Abdulla after the local DRI got a gold consignment of six jackets (each jacket has 100 bars) belonging to Dawood Ibrahim.

The CBI was investigating the death of the custom's informer s death when Abdulla was apprehended by the DRI in Govandi in the mandrax case. He was to supervise the entire Govandi operation. Pillai, a resident of Dubai, had come down to Mumbai to arrange the export of the drugs to South Africa.During the trial, DRI officers and witnesses had received several threats. Special public prosecutor Arun Gupte appeared for the DRI.

This is the second major conviction won by the DRI, Mumbai in the last six months, the first being a conviction involving manufacture and sale of mandrax worth Rs 4.5 crore in Amravati.