The Thiruvallur district police on Friday arrested two persons, including an exporter, for possession of deer antlers without license. Twenty tonnes of antlers valued around `2 crore were seized.
Police said Subramaniam (45) of VGP Nagar, Rajajipuram, Thiruvallur owned an export company located at Aranvoyal on the Thiruvallur-Poonamallee Highway. He claimed to have purchased the deer antlers from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh after obtaining permission from the forest department. Using the antlers, he made many products including coat buttons, handles of swords and walking sticks. He had been running the company since 1990, police said.
The end products made of deer antlers were then legally exported to European countries, the US, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Uganda after obtaining permission from the State and the Central governments.
According to Forest officials, the purchase of deer antlers and sale of finished products have to be done only after obtaining proper license from the chief wildlife warden. In 2009, the government had banned export of shed deer antlers, officials said. However, Subramaniam continued to possess deer antlers without renewing his license, police said.
On Thursday night, a polic team raided the export company after receiving a tip-off, seized the antlers and arrested exporter Subramaniam and his manager Kothandam.
They were remanded in judicial custody.
Forest officials said that Subramanian had applied for renewal as his license got expired in September 2009 but he did not get one.