Tuesday, August 9 2005 10:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian police have said there may be an alliance between Indian gangsters here and criminals from south India, after authorities detained two Indian nationals and seized a large amount of drug called Ketamine.

Police are trying to find if the syndicate members, who are involved in murder, extortion, gold smuggling and drugs, are affiliated with Mumbai underworld gangs of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan.

Fifteen people were arrested over the weekend, two of them Indian nationals and 156 kg of party drug called Ketamine, believed to have been smuggled from India, was seized.

The seizure is said to be the biggest this year and had a street value of about 10 crores. Some of it was meant for China where it would have fetched a higher price, it said.

For some time now, police intelligence reports had suggested that local Indian gangs here had forged alliances with criminals in south India. Besides protecting criminals hiding from the law, they have committed murders on the instructions of their allies, a media report said.

"Two Indian nationals detained on August 6, 2005 had smuggled the contraband into the country from India," Narcotics Department Director, Mohammad Abdul Aziz, was quoted by 'New Straits Times' as saying.

Twelve Malaysians and one foreigner were also arrested along with the Indians. Police said two key figures in the operations here were a doctor and the General Manager of one of the city's pharmaceutical companies.

The doctor was described as the syndicate's chemist while the General Manger apparently forged the alliance to import the contraband from India, the paper said.