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A millionaire veg vendor

Kailash Sarkar
A vegetable vendor turned drug dealer did very well for 14 years but yesterday he finally got arrested along with his wife. The couple owns a four-storey building in Narayanganj, several flats in Dhaka, and an array of motor vehicles.
The vendor is not your average shabjiwala (vegetables monger) you see on the streets or in bazaars. He is special. He just sells vegetables as cover. His real business is smuggling the banned drug Phensidyle to Dhaka from India.
Hailing from Homna upazila in Comilla, Sana Ullah, 35, and his wife Rashida Akhter, 31, had been running the Phensidyle business for the last 14 years maintaining a 15-membergang.
Detective Branch (DB) personnel arrested them and nine members of the gang at Khilgaon in the capital with 3,200 bottles of Phensidyle, their truck, their car and a CNG-run auto-rickshawyesterday.
Hours after the arrest, they revealed to the law enforcers how they became so successful over the years.
Talking to The Daily Star at the DB office, the detained couple narrated various techniques of smuggling of the drug to Dhaka through the border dodging the eyes of the border guards of both countries and the law enforcers in Bangladesh.
Sana Ullah said over the years they supplied Phensidyle to Dhaka from the bordering areas of
Satkhira and Jessore on his truck. They brought the drug to Dhaka hiding them in fish fry containers and under perishable vegetables.
“We used the cover of fish fry too fool the law enforcers. The fry may die if there were delays on the way. That is why police do not stop fish fry carrying trucks for too long,” Sana Ullah said, adding, “Perishable vegetables like tomatoes were also used as cover for the same reason.”
He said they have local agents in the bordering areas of Satkhira and Jessore who pay the Indian traders in advance to buy the drugs. He claimed that local agents include chairmen and members of several union parishads in Benapole of Jessore and Debhata in Satkhira.
He said, “The local agents appoint a number of people, mainly women and children, who cross
the border with 100-bottle shipments of Phensidyle by swimming across rivers and canals or through forests and fields.”
Replying to a query, Sana Ullah said he eventually became rich and the owner of a four-storey building at Mijmiji of Siddhirganj in Narayanganj, flats in the capital, two microbuses, a car, three CNG-run autorickshaws, a truck with the money he made from this business.
His wife Rashida said her husband was a vegetable vendor from 1993 to 1998. He joined the smuggling business with the help of one Faruq, now absconding. She herself got involved in 2000.
“After the Phensidyle reaches the capital, I supply them to different spots with our car and the law enforcers do not suspect me since I am a woman,” Rashida said.
Mashiur Rahman, Senior Assistant Commissioner of DB, who led the drive to arrest them, said Sana Ullah's gang has been supplying around 10,000 bottles of Phensidyle to Dhaka every week
He said Sana was arrested three times before but he got out on bail and resumed his activity. His wife used to run the business when he was away in jail.
He said they produced the 11 detainees before a Dhaka court seeking 10-day remands for each of them but the court granted only one day in remand.
The other detainees are Jasim Uddin, 27, Liton Hossain, 30, Mohammad Ahsan, 31, Mohar Ali, 28, Osman Gani, 28, Mosharraf Hossain, 32, Yiasin Arafat alias Russell, 26, Mohammad Ishaq, 25, and Mohammad Zakaria, 22.