On a tip-off that a large consignment of drug was smuggled into Mumbai, a police squad led by Assistant Police Inspector Vijay Salaskar swung into action and successfully nabbed Kothari near Shagun Hotel at Mumbai Central. He will be handed over to the CBI for further investigations.

The CBI was on Kothari's trail after he had managed to smuggle in 845.2 kgs of charas valued at nearly Rs 50 lakh in international market stuffed into 589 leather jackets and packed in 34 cartons. According to the CBI the consignment was smuggled into Mumbai in a truck which reached here from Jaipur on June 16, 1998. Kothari had managed to evade officials by declaring that the cartons contained leather jackets.

Last year, CBI had declared a reward of Rs twolakh to anyone who could provide information leading to Kothari's arrest. Earlier, Rajasthan police had arrested Kothari in four cases and he was named in over a dozen cases related to drug smuggling.

According to Additional Commissioner of Police (south region) Arup Patnaik, Kothari is a leader of an international drug cartel and he could be involved in smuggling narcotics from across the border with Pakistan.

Despite the massive manhunt launched by the CBI team last year, Kothari managed to evade arrest until his arrest on Sunday.

The other members of the AEC squad are sub-inspector Uday Rajeshirke, Satyawan Mane, Hemant Desai and Sushma Surve.