Police in Thane stumbled on 376 kg of charas packed in 12 cartons marked ‘Himachal Apples’ when a Tavera that sped past a checkpoint was stopped on 6 April 2010.[1] Chunnilal Kumar, 32, and Pawan Wadhwa, 33, were arrested with the vehicle.[1]

The load had travelled from Kullu hidden in a truck carrying an apple consignment, and following its trail led to the arrest of the truck’s owner, Rakesh Awasthi of Kullu.[1] Two more arrests brought the total to five, though the alleged kingpin of the transaction remained at large and unnamed.[1] At 1 lakh rupees a kg, police valued the haul at about 3.76 crore rupees in the Mumbai market, a 376 kg figure a later account repeated.[1][2]

Mumbai’s anti-narcotics wing led the investigation with assistance from Kullu police, who put a resident of Jaan village near Manikaran under surveillance over links to the highland growing areas of the Malana valley.[1] Kullu’s police chief said the district had seized 210 kg of charas and about 20 kg of opium the previous year, and 80 kg of charas since January.[1] The state police chief later described a 336 kg Mumbai charas catch tracked back to the Kullu valley.[3]