cocaine
Creative Commons

On Friday, the Central Crime Branch in Bengaluru nabbed Prateek Shetty in connection to the Sandalwood drug scandal. The software engineer turned drug peddler has a history as one of the accused in the 2018 drug case in Bengaluru.

Prateek Shetty arrested

The CCB arrested Prateek Shetty after his name came up as one of the accused the Sandalwood drug case that's gripped Karnataka. The CCB found links to the drug peddler in chats of on who's been taken into custody Ravi Shankar. It is reported that the two peddled drugs together to stars and VIPs in the industry. Ravi Shankar was procuring drugs from Prateek.

Joint Commissioner of Bengaluru city police Sandeep Patil said in a media statement, "The CCB police has arrested drug peddler Prateek Shetty in the early hours of Friday." 

Prateek Shetty is a software engineer from Mangaluru who came to Bengaluru in 2010. The 30-year-old was working at an IT firm after which his addiction pushed him towards peddling drugs. in 2018, Shetty was arrested after he was accused in a case where the CCB uncovered 1.5 kgs of Cocaine and 1,930 Ecstasy pills valued at Rs 1.48 crores. Shetty was released on bail in 2019, after he was found not in possession of a commercial quantity of cocaine.

Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa spoke about the drug case on Friday and urged for patience in the media, "The investigation in the Bengaluru drug case has been taken up & is being conducted, very seriously. We need to wait for a while to get the full picture of the case. Police officers have been given a free hand to probe into the matter." 

Meanwhile, actresses Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani were both taken into custody. Ragini Dwivedi's bail petition has been pushed to September 14th. Both actresses have had to undergo medical tests in connection to the drug case.