Techie-turned-international red sanders smuggler held

Kadapa: In a major breakthrough, the cops nabbed international red sanders smuggler and his two followers in Chennai and recovered Rs 50 lakh worth 22 red sanders logs weighing 593 kilos, two cards, 59 grams of gold ornaments, 3 mobile phones and Rs 14,000 cash from them.

The accused were identified as Ethirajulu alias Naidu (international smuggler) native of Rekha Nagar in Chennai, T Lakshmaiah of Urigoddavaripalle village and G Vinod Kumar of Ayyavaripalli village in B Kodur mandal.

Addressing the media here on Monday, District SP Attada Babujee said that the prime accused in this case was engineering graduate Ethirajulu. Earlier, he worked as telecom engineer in Satyam Computers for some years, he stated.

The SP revealed Ethirajulu had developed contacts with national and international red sanders smugglers in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra and smuggled 600 tonnes of red sanders logs till date.

The key accused had used T Lakshmaiah and G Vinod Kumar for transporting red sanders logs and was close aide of notorious international red sanders smugglers like Sahul bhai and Mansur of Dubai.

During the interrogation, the SP said international smugglers like Sethu Madhavan, Mubarak Ali, Arcot Bhai, Satyanarayana Giri Naidu and others had revealed the name of Ethirajulu. On a tip off, the cops arrested the key accused in Chennai on June 24.