VELLORE: The Vellore district police have nabbed 13 persons involved in illegal transportation, stocking and sale of gutkha ferried from Bengaluru via Krishnagiri to a destination in the city here.
According to Superintendent of Police (SP) Pravesh Kumar, the banned gutkha was sneaked into Vellore from Bengaluru by a gang by hiding it in boxes showing as if they were consumer goods.
“As many as 13 persons have been arrested so far. Most of them are from Krishnagiri district. They had ferried the contraband from Bengaluru to Vellore on goods vehicle. Probe is still going to unearth the entire racket,” he told Express on Tuesday.
A special team led by Vellore city DSP Balakrishnan is probing the case.
Inquiries revealed that six persons-K Kumar,35, of Sigaralapalli, M Murali, 18, Denkanikottai, S Gaurappa, 26, Denkanikottai, K Suresh, 29, Chinna Mettur and G Tirupathi, 27, Kaveripattinam, all from Krishnagiri district-have acted as ''route escorts' from the stretch between Krishnagiri and Vellore.
They had been moving on a car like a pilot vehicle guiding the goods van, in which the gutkha was loaded, safely to its destination. Van driver N Arjunan, 31, of Kolathur in Dharmapuri district and cleaner M Poovarasan, 22, of Kaveripattinam, Krishnagiri, were also landed in the police net.
O Jeevaram, 40, of Thennamara Street in Vellore city, had hired purchased the gutkha and stocked at a hired godown. He had been absconding while his brother O Jijendrakumar, 33, their manager I Sikkannaram, 22, and Pradeep, 19, were held by the police.
The cops also arrested 42-year-old A Sakthivel of Abdullapuram, an ex-councillor district panchayat councillor, who hired the godown, apart from him, two more persons-D Vinoth, 30, a driver, and T Prasanth, 23, a loadman-were also nabbed.
As many as 200 boxes, each weighing 50 kg gutkha, were seized from the gang, the SP said, adding the value could be around Rs. 2 crore.
The special squad has been holding a thorough investigation of the smuggling of gutkha to get to the bottom of the network.
The smuggling of gutkha came to light when the 'escorts' and the men on the goods van engaged in a tiff at the toll plaza in Pallikonda on Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway over sharing of money on Monday. On information, the local police rushed to the spot and held inquiries, that ended up in the big cache of the contraband. One of the men arrested by the police Kumar had possessed fake press reporter's identity cards, the police said.