Bhubaneswar, July 13: Peddlers of brown sugar in the city are making a killing by selling the drug at 10 times the procurement cost.
This came to light after police yesterday arrested two drug peddlers staying at Haladi Padia slum, which was in news last month after the slum dwellers had assaulted officers of Lakshmisagar police station in the area.
The accused were identified as Dillip Singh, 51, and Suresh Singh, 26, both natives of Bihar. They had been staying in the slum for the past several years.
"We have been keeping tabs on the slum following allegations of sale of drugs. Yesterday, our men intercepted a car near Tankapani road and seized 223 pouches of brown sugar weighing around 60 grams," said police commissioner R.P. Sharma.
The duo had procured the contraband from Balasore by paying Rs 4,000, but they were selling each pouch containing a few milligrams for Rs 170.
"They would have sold the consignment at around Rs 40,000," said the police commissioner.
The police, too, found that both the accused used to add incense stick ash and mosquito stick ash in the contraband to increase the volume of the powder.
Further investigation is on to ascertain the source, which supplied the duo the contraband, said a police officer.
Sources said that earlier, peddlers used to procure drugs from Puri and Chatia in Jajpur district, but nowadays Balasore had become the new destination for peddlers to procure brown sugar.
"The peddlers are targeting youths, especially the students. Earlier, they used to sell the contrabands at lower prices. Later when they realised that the buyer had got addicted, the peddlers hiked the price," said a police official.
In March, the excise sleuths had seized around 20 grams of brown sugar from one Krushna Chandra Nayak, who was staying at a slum in the Khandagiri police limits.
Sources said that most of the peddlers dealing with ganja and other contrabands were switching over to sale of brown sugar for fetching high profit.
"The ganja peddlers sell the contraband double the cost of procurement. But, the profit margin is very high for drugs such as heroin," said a source.