The officials of DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) in Mangalore seized 16.99 tonnes of red sanders valued at Rs 6.79 crore from a container at New Mangalore Port on Wednesday.
A late evening press release by DRI said that the container was loaded to the vessel -- m.v. Tiger Mango V 130 -- and was exported by declaring the goods as ‘Mysore Detergent Cake’ destined for Sharjah. The ship sailed out on from New Mangalore Port to Colombo Port on August 9.
The release said the ship was called back from Colombo port following specific intelligence about concealment of contraband goods in the container. The said container was not offloaded at Colombo as per instruction of DRI and was kept on board the vessel. The same vessel arrived at New Mangalore Port on August 18 and offloaded the container on August 20.
On detailed examination, it was found that the goods already stuffed by the exporter initially was substituted with red sanders at some place near Bangalore without tampering the seals affixed by the Department of Central Excise.
Officials of DRI arrested Samuel Aruldoss, Managing Director of Beracha Exim Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, and Ganesh Kumar, driver of the truck that transported the said container from Bangalore to New Mangalore Port. Investigation has been initiated in this case.
As per the prevailing market value for export, red sanders worth Rs 6.79 crore were seized from the ship, it said.
Red sanders wood is prohibited for export in any form in terms of the prevalent Foreign Trade Policy, it added.