Prohibition and Excise Department has seized about 600 kg of dry ganja and arrested five smugglers at Narsipatnam on Friday morning. Friday’s seizure takes the count to about 1.5 tonnes of dry ganja and arrest of nine persons in total in the last two days in the agency area of Visakhapatnam District.
The alleged smugglers, who were arrested on Friday, were identified as Santosh Kumar, Ramu Yadav and Gopal Yadav, all from Uttar Pradesh and Arun Kumar Nayak and Anantharam Medha from Odisha.
The ganja was being smuggled in a lorry and the police have seized the lorry.
On Thursday, the Excise officials seized about 700 kg of dry ganja at the same place and arrested two persons – Munnalal of Uttar Pradesh and Radheshyam of Madhya Pradesh. The police also seized the lorry and cash Rs. 36,700.
In another raid on Thursday, the task force of the Excise Department arrested three persons – V. Ramana from Anakapalli, G. Nageswara Rao from Devarapalli mandal and Behera from Odisha. The Task Force also seized about 220 kg of dry ganja.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Excise M. Satyanarayana, the market value of seized dry ganja is estimated to be about Rs. 1.5 crore.
