Mangaluru : CCB sleuths and Konaje police arrested three persons including a student and seized 170 grams of MDMA near Mangalore University at Konaje.

The value of the drugs seized is over Rs 10 lakh.

The trio were transporting MDMA for selling it in Mangaluru and Uppala in Kasargod, said City Police Commissioner N Shashi Kumar to mediapersons.

The arrested are Abdul Manaf, a student studying in a college in Bengaluru; Ahmed Masooq, who works in a shop selling sports accessories at Nelamangala in Bengaluru, and Mohammed Muzambil, who works in a hotel in J P Nagar in Bengaluru. All three hail from Uppala in Kasargod, said the Commissioner.

Acting on a tip-off, the police personnel started tracking the trio from Hassan and caught them at Konaje.

During the investigation, the arrested revealed that they were selling MDMA for Rs 6,000 per gram. The trio had procured the synthetic drug from an African national in Bengaluru. The team from Mangaluru is already in Bengaluru as part of the investigation, the Police Commissioner informed.

The team of police personnel are also looking for the consumers who were relying on the arrested for the synthetic drugs in Mangaluru and Uppala. The police will also verify whether the arrested had customers in Mangalore University campus as well. The trio were also involved in drug peddling in Bengaluru and had even sold ganja in Mangaluru in the past.

A case has been registered at Economic Offences and Narcotics Police Station in Mangaluru.