Four held for smuggling

Goods worth Rs15 lakh seized

Four people have been arrested by the Vile Parle police for possessing smuggled ball bearings and electronic goods worth to Rs15 lakh.

The four, Mohammad Nainar, 47, Hamid Sultan, 37, Mohammad Khan, 33, and Rafiq Sheikh, 40, were planning to send the ball bearings and the electronics items to Chennai. The police spotted the gang  at Vile Parle station early on Monday morning.

“The three could not give any satisfactory reply to our questions. We then searched the four bags kept in the car (Maruti Van), we found 66 cameras (Nikon and Cannon brands), 21 camera lenses, 300 FM radios, 65 CDs, 22 plastic packets containing camera appliances, 30 computer chips and 500 ball bearings,” PI Sudhakar Pujari said. “They are worth Rs15 lakh,” he added. The police then arrested Khan, who owns the car.

Inspector Pujari added that Nainar, Sultan and Khan arrived in Mumbai on January 25 and were staying in Dongri. “There is reason to believe that the goods were meant for some illegal purpose, as the four travelled from Dongri to meet Khan — who owns a courier agency at Vile Parle. We believe they had sent goods to Chennai in the past too.” Coins from other countries, including Sri Lanka were also recovered.

“We learnt that one them came back from Hong Kong with these goods on January 28. They had planned to smuggle these goods to Chennai,” said ACP Bipin Bihari (western zone).