Pratheek Shetty was also one of the three accused persons arrested by the Banaswadi Police in 2018 and 1,290 gm of cocaine and 1,930 gm of MDMA pills were seized. Three men including Faith Chucks, a South African national, Kante Hery from Guinea and Pratheek Shetty, a resident of New Thippasandra, was arrested then. At the time, Pratheek Shetty was allegedly selling drugs to Ravi Shankar but had not disclosed the information to the police. Pratheek Shetty allegedly came to Bengaluru in 2010 when he got a job as a software engineer. He lived in Karachanahalli and allegedly began consuming synthetic drugs. Police say that he turned to peddle drugs in the subsequent years after he came into contact with student dealers, who were from African countries. “He developed contacts of peddlers in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, where he used to source drugs from. He has been doing this since 2010,” a CCB officer said.