Chandigarh, Nov 11 (IANS): The kingpin of a Rs.700-crore drugs racket busted recently by Punjab Police was Monday nabbed in Haryana, a senior police officer said.

Jagdish Singh alias Bhola, who was a dismissed deputy superintendent of police (DSP), was arrested by a team of Patiala police near Murthal in Haryana, close to the Haryana-Delhi border.

"He was arrested along with his four associates and synthetic drugs worth Rs.18 crore from a dhaba at Ghanaur," Patiala district police chief H.S. Mann said.

Bhola was on the run since March this year when, in a joint operation by police in Jalandhar rural, Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala, a Rs.700-crore racket of synthetic drugs was busted.

"Police were tracking Jagdish Bhola relentlessly and after months of patient follow-up and ground work, the notorious kingpin and mastermind was trapped by a police party of Patiala district, along with his four associates, drugs estimated at Rs.18 crore in the international market and two cars," Mann said in Patiala, 80 km from here.

Punjab Police have arrested over 25 people, including non-resident Indians (NRIs), after the synthetic drugs racket was busted in March.

"He (Bhola) was the kingpin of an extensive drug network which was diverting precursor chemicals for medicinal purposes to illegal factories manufacturing synthetic drugs like Ice and supplying the synthetic drugs to the international market in Europe, Canada and the US," Mann said.

Bhola was a former decorated wrestler who had won the Arjuna Award, Bharat Kesri and Rustam-i-Hind titles. He was recruited in the police under the sports category as an officer. He was dismissed from service last year.