30 smugglers held in Andhra, 7 tonne red sanders seized

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Hyderabad: As many as 30 red sanders smugglers, mostly from Tamil Nadu, were on Sunday arrested in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh and 201 logs of the precious wood weighing 7 tonne, worth over Rs 2 crore, seized from them.
Personnel of Task Force, formed to check smuggling of red sandalwood, apprehended the smugglers when they were transporting the red sanders after cutting trees in Bakarapet forest area, a senior officer said.
"We chased the smugglers at four stages (of transporting the red sanders) and nabbed 30 persons," Task Force Officer G Uday Kumar said.
While 22 of accused who cut the red sander trees are from Tamil Nadu, the rest acted as "pilots" to oversee transportation, he said, adding the Task Force also impounded a ten-wheeler lorry. The Task Force was formed by the state government in June and comprises officers from police and forest departments.
The mandate of the dedicated team is to curb smuggling of red sanders in Kadapa, Chittoor and Nellore districts, from where illegal felling and transportation of the precious and endangered wood had been widely reported.