Noida: What appeared to be an ordinary consignment of books travelling from Odisha to Delhi turned out to be a shipment of cannabis worth around Rs 10 lakh. Police said the drug trafficking attempt was uncovered at a logistics warehouse in Greater Noida on Friday after an X-ray scan revealed nearly 20 kg of ganja concealed between layers of books inside two packages.A consignment was intercepted at Swastik Logistics in Dhoom Manikpur on Thursday after warehouse workers detected suspicious packages booked through a private courier service.Workers scanned the packages, which had arrived as part of a delivery shipment and were to be sent to Delhi the next day. They found books forming the outer layers, while the middle was hollow.This made them suspicious, and they alerted Badalpur police station. A police team went to the warehouse and scanned the packages again. The cops opened the packages and found the books had been placed along the outer layers of the packages, while cannabis had been carefully hidden in the middle.Police said the arrangement appeared designed to make the consignment look like a legitimate shipment of reading material and conceal the narcotics during routine handling. Around 20 kilograms of cannabis worth Rs 10 lakh was seized by them.Investigators are now examining the details of the consignment, including the identities of the sender and the intended recipient, to establish the circumstances surrounding its transportation.Police said a case is being registered against both the sender and the recipient of the consignment.The investigation is also expected to examine whether the shipment was an isolated attempt to transport narcotics or part of a wider drug distribution network operating between Odisha and Delhi-NCR.Officers are trying to establish the complete chain of transportation, including the booking and intended delivery of the packages. Further investigation is under way.In a similar case earlier this year, police arrested an interstate drug smuggler who was allegedly using an ambulance to ferry cannabis from Odisha to Delhi-NCR, banking on the emergency vehicle’s exemption from routine checks and toll inspections. Officers said 64 kg of cannabis, valued at around Rs 13 lakh in the international market, was recovered from the vehicle, which was also seized.Additional DCP Manisha Singh had said a team from Phase 1 police station had received a tip-off about the operation. Officers set up checks near the Jhundpura border based on the information on Tuesday and intercepted a Maruti Eeco ambulance without a registration number plate. A search later led to the seizure of the drugs, and Omveer Singh, a resident of Agra, was arrested on the spot.
