An Indian shipper for the Bansals stored pills in a basement on this Delhi Street.
DrugNet, Chapter 6: Family Feuds
Father and son squabble over streamlining drug sales, while federal agents fight over turf.
THE STORY SO FAR
As the feds wiretap Temple grad student Akhil Bansal's e-mail, Akhil wiretaps his employees and feuds with his father. Today's installment begins as a Philly DEA agent dashes to India, hoping to listen to secret phone wiretaps of calls between Akhil and his father. It is February 2005.
NEW DELHI
As a military policeman in Vietnam, and as a Philly cop for 24 years, Carlos Aquino had seen plenty of poverty.
But here in chaotic central New Delhi, where the DEA investigator had come hoping to listen to Indian phone wiretaps, he felt overwhelmed. Climbing the open-air stairs of the Indian drug agency's regional headquarters, Carlos did a double take. Atop the building next door, he saw a family sitting on a tattered couch watching TV on the roof.
He scanned the teeming skyline. Dotted across the horizon, residents had raised ragtag tents, grabbing space wherever they could. People cooked, washed laundry. Kids played up there. It hit Carlos: too many people, too little room.
No wonder Indians worried about corruption.
Carlos moved on. He carried his laptop past an empty jail cell, beyond a darkened room where servants squatted sipping coffee, and into a cream-colored conference room.
There Carlos began his pitch for the wiretaps with a PowerPoint presentation. He shared e-mail, surveillance and bank records of the primary targets - Brij Bansal in Agra and son Akhil in Philadelphia.
How This Series Was Produced
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Shankar Rao, the Narcotic Control Bureau's zonal director for Delhi, talked about customs regulations, dealers and the Bansals' background, but refrained from mentioning the wiretaps, the most sensitive part of the case.
The Indians had begun tapping Brij's cell phone in November. They had scores of calls between father and son about their business - fulfilling 1,000 orders a day, one million tablets a month, to people buying online, no prescription required.
The Indians were reluctant to share the wiretaps. In India, taps were permitted only as an investigative tool and could not be used in court. They had to be burned 60 days after an arrest. NCB wanted to show it was serious, but feared losing control of the recordings.
Finally, the senior Indian agent glanced down the row of officials. He stared at Rao and then nodded. He said something in Hindi.
Rao translated, "We'll make the arrangements."
