Bengaluru: 4,000 kg of sandalwood seized, 13 smugglers held

BENGALURU: In one of the biggest crackdowns on the sandalwood smugglers, the Bengaluru police busted a well-organised inter-state gang and seized 4,000 kg of sandalwood, worth Rs 3.5 crore in the international market, from them.

The gang was involved in stealing sandalwood trees for over a decade. They used to smuggle them within India and abroad.

The police arrested 13 smugglers, including the gang leader Abdul Rashid alias Puttu Bayar (48), who hails from Puttur in Dakshina Kannada. He already has several cases of sandalwood smuggling booked against him.

For Central Crime Branch it was a huge challenge to bust this International sandalwood smuggling racket. The raid was meticulously planned for two months and successfully executed on Friday and Saturday.

CCB sleuths got a tip off about the sandalwood smugglers operating from the city and having multiple godowns in Subramanyapura, Electronics City and Vinayaka Nagar. Multiple teams were formed to track the movements of smugglers and their business.

On Friday night, based on credible information, one of the CCB teams intercepted a goods  vehicle near Vinayaka theater in Vinayaka Nagar and detained its  driver M.S. Basha, a resident of HAL.

When they checked the vehicle, they found seven boxes with 14 sandalwood logs, totally weighing 500 kg. The cops seized the vehicle and took Basha for further questioning.

During the course of investigation, Basha revealed about the godown where his accomplices were put up and also told police about the huge stock of sandalwood.

The police on Saturday morning conducted a raid at a godown and two rooms attached to it in Doddanagamangala in Electronic City police station limits. They were shocked to see over 100 boxes meant to be smuggled to Mumbai, Chennai, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China and Vietnam. The police also picked up 12 smugglers staying in the rooms attached to the godown.

The police said that each box contained sandalwood logs weighing 35 kg and the total weight of the sandalwood seized in operation was 4,000 kg.
Apart from Rashid and Basha, the police have identified the other accused Zuber Khan (33), Saleem Khan (50) and Tahir Khan (25), all residents of HAL; Shafi (30), Mohammad Shabbir alias Munna (20), both from  Bantwal in Dakshina Kannada; Naushad (27) and Abubakar Siddiq (40), both hailing from Kasargod in Kerala; Ibrahim (28), Mohammad Anwar alias Annu (23), both from Bantwal, Mubarak (26), a resident of Konanakunte Cross in Bengaluru and Ali Khan alias Mohammad Rahim Khan (40), a resident of Vijayanagar in the city.

Modus operandi
The police found that the accused would source stolen sandalwood logs from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. The consignments were brought to the city and stored in the godowns in Subramanyapura, Electronics City and Vinayaka Nagar.

They would pack the sandalwood logs into boxes, in order to avoid arousing suspicion, and send it to their contacts in Chennai, Mumbai and other parts of the country via trucks, buses and trains. The accused would also smuggle sandalwood log boxes abroad via cargo flights.

Background of the accused
According to police, accused number one Abdul Rashid was earlier booked in nine cases of sandalwood smuggling, including four in Andhra Pradesh, three in Kerala, and two each in Bengaluru and Mangaluru.

Two cases of sandalwood smuggling were also booked against Zuber in Andhra Pradesh. Another accused Mubarak used to work in the cargo section of a private bus service and used to facilitate smuggling of log boxes to different cities by buses.