Police in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh said on Saturday they have charged senior executives of Amazon India in a case that alleged that the e-commerce marketplace was allegedly used to smuggle marijuana in the South Asian market.
The police didn’t disclose how many senior executives they had charged, but said that executive directors of Amazon India were being named as accused under the nation’s narcotics law following discovery of facts as part of the investigation.
The police in Madhya Pradesh arrested two men with 20 kg of marijuana last week and said the men were using Amazon India website to smuggle the substance.
Amazon said last week that it was cooperating with the authority in the investigation. The home minister of the Indian state said this week that Amazon was not cooperating with the probe.
India is a key overseas market for Amazon. The American e-commerce giant has invested over $6.5 billion in its operations in India. The company is currently subject of an antitrust probe in the country and also in the middle of highly disputed multi-billion dollars deal involving Future Retail and Reliance Retail, two of India’s largest retail chains.
