Chennai: The role played by people from Tamil Nadu in red sanders smuggling has not always been restricted to that of “highly paid woodcutters”, but also into trafficking as well.
Chennai port emerged as one of the major hubs from where these smugglers ‘exported’ their consignment to East Asian countries like Malaysia, Japan and China. The fact that the police and DRI had made a few arrests of kingpin smugglers from Vellore and Chennai is an indicator that red sander smugglers operated even beyond the state boundary without linguistic barriers.
Unfortunately, the Tuesday morning massacre of 20 TN workers in Tirupati forest during an operation by the STF seems to have missed the real smugglers.
During the last five years, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Chennai, unit had seized 155 tonnes of red sanders worth over Rs 415 crore. “The seizure was mainly done from the Chennai port and also some godowns located in and around the city,” DRI sources said.
Quantity of seizure had been steadily increasing during the same period. DRI had also arrested 16 people in the connection with the seizures. “All the arrested belonged to Chennai,” DRI sources said. The DRI is not claiming that they had intercepted all the containers stuffed with red sanders in the last five years. A good quantity could have reached the destination.
Red sanders smuggled out of the Andhra Pradesh forests are kept in various godowns in Chennai and Tiruvallur and moved through Chennai port in containers to South East Asian countries where red sanders logs are high in demand for their medicinal value and their use in musical instruments.
Internationally, the price of red sanders has also gone up. It was Rs 10 crore for one tonne of red sanders in the international market five years. “Maybe because the supply has increased over the years, the value has come down in the international market,” sources added.
It may be noted that June last year, a woman karakattam dancer and a suspected red sanders smuggler Mohanambal, surrendered in a Vellore court after the police seized over Rs 4 crore from her house in Vellore. She and her nephew Saravanan, were believed to be partners red sanders smuggling.
Along with Saravanan, Mohanambal had been running a major red sander smuggling racket and had acquired 28 houses besides cars and huge stock of liquid cash. The police raided her house based on a tip-off and seized cash and gold from there.
Even Andhra Police arrested Rajendran, a brother of a Chennai politician, when he tried to smuggle red sanders in his BMW car in August last year. Another notorious smuggler, who was hiding in Chetpet in Chennai was arrested by AP police last year.
