Hyderabad: Phd scholar arrested for manufacturing mephedrone drugs at secret lab

Hyderabad: The Directorate of Revenue and Intelligence (DRI) on Friday caught a PhD degree holder chemist red-handed while delivering 3.15 kilograms of the banned psychotropic substance, mephedrone, that he himself manufactured, worth Rs 63.12 lakh to a man in Hyderabad. The drugs were seized from a private lab in the industrial area at Jeedimetla in Hyderabad

The accused has been identified as 45-year-old Srinivasa Rao, a PhD in Chemistry.It is said that the researcher was working with a Mumbai-based drug racket and had already supplied them 100-kg of drugs.

According to DRI, a raid was conducted at the chemist’s secret lab on the outskirts of the city, from where another 112 gram of mephedrone samples, worth Rs 12.40 lakhs have been seized.

Also, 219.5 kg of raw materials, sufficient to make another 15 to 20 kilograms of the substance, were recovered.

Mephedrone is a synthetic stimulant drug generally abused for recreation and popular among the urban college-going crowd.