Published: 08th April 2015
VELLORE: Once a sleepy town, Vellore has now earned the notoriety of being the key transit point for the multi-crore international red sander mafia network to smuggle out the precious logs.
Recent confiscation of vehicles with loads of high quality red sander trunks in the district has proved this beyond doubt. Indeed, smugglers are smart enough than law enforcing agencies in ferrying red sander consignments through Vellore from the fauna and flora rich Seshachalam Reserve Forest range in Andhra Pradesh to Red Hills, on the outskirts of Chennai, and Bengaluru in Karnataka. From there, the logs are smuggled out of the country through air or sea to Japan, China, Myanmar and other East Asian countries. The market for this wood involves crores of rupees.
Vellore district shares its border with Chittoor for over 150 km from Pernambut to Sholinghur. There are seven interconnecting roads along the stretch and hundreds of village roads passing through the border areas. “Smugglers usually make their entry in Pernambut area and prefer the interior roads along the Vellore-Chittoor border. Rarely they use the National Highways or State Highways,” said a police official.
Candidly admitting that smugglers were carrying out their activities without much difficulty, another police officer said, “Their modus operandi is similar to the police running a VIP convoy. They send an informer ahead of the vehicle carrying red sander logs. The informers alert about any movement or presence of police.”
Expressing the inability to check smuggling of red sanders, a senior forest official said, “With poorly equipped staff, we are not in a position to stop the inter-state smugglers.”
Meanwhile, two youth from Tiruvannamalai district were held for smuggling 746 kg red sander logs near Sholinghur on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment