Red sanders (sandalwood) smugglers have found new routes like Visakhapatnam and Kolkata ports, which are not on the scanner of enforcement officials, to ship the wood to destinations abroad, after authorities tightened vigil at the Chennai port, police sources said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) M Srinivas said that Visakhapatnam has slowly emerged as a hub for red sanders smuggling.
He said that though it is a herculean task for the police to check thousands of containers passing everyday through the city for red sanders, special teams would be set up to check shipping containers, to seize the precious wood.
Smugglers tend to keep the wood illegally in shipping containers along with legitimate goods at various places and brought these containers to Visakhapatman city to ship it via Visakhapatnam port or by road to neighbouring states, he said.
He said that it is very difficult to check all containers at Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) and Visakha Container Terminal Pvt Ltd (VCTPL) without prior permission from the commissioner of customs, especially when smugglers cleverly paste 'Perishable Commodity' labels on containers to evade officials.
After the seizure of around 370 red sanders logs worth around Rs 5 crore by the city police on Wednesday night in the city as well as the seizure of a container load of the banned logs by Directorate Revenue Intelligence (DRI) recently, the police suspects that Visakhapatnam has emerged as a hub for red sanders smugglers, he said.
Police sources said that red sanders logs are being exported to China, Malaysia and Singapore through the sea route or to the parts of Odisha and Kolkata by road and from there, to other destinations.
