The smuggling came to light after the recovery of three consignments of rare red sandalwood from a container ship, Budhtendu.
KOLKATA: Dreaded bandit Veerappan may have been killed by the police in October 2004 but this has hardly put a stop to smuggling of sandalwood. In fact, Kolkata has now emerged as the favourite transit route for smuggling sandalwood. However, the modus-operandi followed in smuggling sandalwood here is more refined than in the dense forests along the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, that was the haunt of Veerappan. The people involved in the racket are city based export houses and veteran customs handling agents. The Customs got definite clues of involvement following arrests of some owners of such firms.
Sources from the Direct Revenue Intelligence, a wing of the customs department here told DNA, the matter came to the notice after it recovered three consignments of rare red sandalwood from container ship, Budhtendu. The ship was about to leave for Singapore.
"While the loading of containers was taking place, one of them containing sandalwood broke open. Customs checked the contents of the other containers and two other sandalwood-filled containers were recovered," a senior customs official said. The value of the sandalwood recovered was to the tune of Rs5 crore.
Customs and police zeroed in on a veteran customs handling agent, NN Ghosh, allegedly the main middleman in the racket. After interrogation, Ghosh implicated two export houses Shri Jee International and PK Enterprise. The owners of these enterprises have been arrested. The department estimates that during the last couple of months sandalwood worth around Rs15 to Rs20 crore has been smuggled into Singapore through the Kolkata docks.
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