Man held with red sandalwood worth Rs.2 crore in Gurgaon

A 34-year-old man was arrested here for allegedly smuggling red sandalwood worth Rs.2 crore, police said on Wednesday.

Acting on a tip-off that a truck carrying red sandalwood would pass through Gurgaon, crime branch (unit-9) chief Rajkumar and his team stopped a truck near Rajiv Chowk on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway on Tuesday night.

Some refrigerators were loaded on the truck and sandalwood was hidden behind them.

"The truck was heading towards Kolkata and was carrying more than 10,000 kg of sandalwood," a senior police officer said.

The driver of the truck, Naresh Kumar alias Kala, hailed from a village in Rohtak district of Haryana.

Kala told police that Dilbag Sharma, a resident of Rohtak, was the kingpin of the gang.

Sharma has a one acre warehouse named "Rattan Brooms" near Hayatpur in Gurgaon, where he used to store brooms brought from Kolkata and the red sandalwood.

Kala also told police that he was working as security guard at the warehouse for the last seven years but got involved in smuggling during the last six months.

Red sandalwood was smuggled from Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

Police said that till now the involvement of five men has been established in the racket.

"We are interrogating the arrested man and more arrests will be made soon," the officer said.