Red sanders worth 3 crore seized, 8 held

PUNE: The Customs department, Pune, on Sunday seized 442 logs of red sanders worth over Rs 3.74 crore from four trucks in KanhePhata near Kamshet on the Pune-Mumbai highway following the arrest of eight drivers on August 16 and 17.
The arrested include Jayraman Ramaswamy (53), Balmurgam Chinniya (28), Balaji Sundaram (30), Govindan Ramaswamy (59), Vinayaga Moorthy (26), Vigneesh Manoharan (21) all from Chennai, Suresh M Krishnaswamy (30) of Andhra Pradeshi and Fahim Waghoo (31) of Mumbra in Thane district.
Officials had received information about the arrival of two to three trucks containing red sanders which is prohibited goods under the Customs Act, 1962. The wood was being taken for illegal export.
On reaching the petrol pump in Kanhe Phata, the officials spotted two trucks parked on the premises of a hotel and found four truck drivers in two rooms of the hotel. The logs were concealed in hay.
The drivers had fake documents stating that they were transporting mangoes and papaya.
They told interrogators that two more trucks containing red sanders would reach Kanhe Phata the next day.
Both these trucks were seized. While 123 logs of red sanders were found in one of them, none was found in the other. The vehicles were driven to Pune by four men.
All the eight drivers were issued summons and called to the Customs' office on Sunday, following which they were arrested after they admitted to illegally transporting the wood to Pune. Waghoo has admitted to placing an order of 15 tonne red sanders to be transported to Pune for illegal export.
Customs' department counsel Krishna Ratnaparkhi said the eight men were sent to judicial custody after they were produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate on Monday.
They were later released on bail on a personal bond of Rs 25,000 each.