KADAPA: Red sanders smugglers have chosen an innovative way to smuggle the precious wood as the police are conducting massive checks at various places on national and State highways and forest areas.
The red sanders smugglers used a specially modified oil tanker to smuggle red sanders logs, which was seized by the police and forest officials in a joint operation.
Disclosing this to newsmen here on Sunday, Kadapa Forest Range Officer Ratna Ravi said that the police and forest personnel noticed an oil tanker stationed at Kanamalapalle village in Siddavaram mandal.
On suspicion, they reached the place for inspection. On seeing the officials, the red sanders smugglers fled the scene. When the officials checked the tanker, they found two workers loading red sanders logs inside. About 95 red sanders logs were seized from the oil tanker. The two workers were taken into custody.
The police and forest personnel launched a massive combing operation in the area and arrested five workers.
When questioned, the workers told the police that they brought the red sanders logs from Kanamalapalle forest area for loading them into the oil tanker, which was deployed to smuggle the precious wood to Chennai. The seized red sanders logs are worth `1 crore in the international market, the Forest Range Officer said.