THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Additional Sessions Court here has awarded 28-year rigorous imprisonment to three people, including a Tamil Nadu resident, who were arrested from the state capital in 2018 with hashish oil valued at Rs 6crore, which was to be smuggled to Maldives. The convicts were Rosari Ronaldo, 45, of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, and Thankamani natives Binoy Thomas, 50, and T N Gopi, 74.
The trio was sentenced by Judge K P Anil Kumar under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act after they were found guilty of conspiracy and drug smuggling. Each offence carries a punishment of 14 years, but since the prison term runs concurrently, they will have to serve 14 years in prison.Apart from that, the three were ordered to pay a fine of Rs 2 lakh each failing which their imprisonment will extend by one more year.
The incident pertaining to the case occurred on September 1, 2018. The excise sleuths led by then Excise Circle Inspector T Anikumar arrested the three from near Eanchakkal when they were carrying 6.36kg hashish oil sourced by an Idukki native Ullas, who is settled in Andhra Pradesh and owns ganja plantations there.
One of the accused, Binoy, is the brother of Kambilikandam Thomas, who was involved in ganja cultivation on a large scale in Idukki prior to the police crackdown in the late 1990s. Thomas mysteriously died in Andhra Pradesh after he went there and started ganja cultivation. It was Ullas, who had escorted Thomas to Andhra Pradesh.
It was because of that relation that he agreed to supply drugs to Binoy. The drug was transported to Thiruvananthapuram in Gopi’s car. Thomas and Gopi were to sell the contraband to Rosari, who had worked as an agent in Thoothukudi port, where he was clandestinely involved in smuggling hashish oil to Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Rosari went into hiding after one of the consignments was caught. As the central agencies and Tamil Nadu police intensified their manhunt for him, Rosari shifted his operation to Thiruvananthapuram. His plan to smuggle hashish oil failed to take off owing to the intervention of the excise.
