Chittoor police on Monday afternoon nabbed a Delhi-based red sanders smuggler, Vikram (35), and seized an SUV in which he was travelling, along with red sander logs worth over Rs.10 lakhs at Ganugachintha water project at Jagadamvaripalle in Piler constituency.
The special branch police told The Hindu that acting on a tip-off, the Rompicharla mandal police waylaid the vehicle and apprehended the smuggler and SUV driver Mekala Siva Reddy. .
Preliminary interrogation revealed that Vikram was on his way to Chennai, after loading the vehicles with the precious logs from an undisclosed location in the Seshachalam hills. He is involved in over two dozen of criminal cases registered at various police stations in Northern India. He is currently operating godowns with red sanders stocks in several places in North Eastern States, and elsewhere in Myanmar and Nepal. Chittoor police had booked about a dozen kingpins under the PD Act in last month in connection with the sanders smuggling.
