Nellore: Chittoor police arrested an international smuggler, Riyajullah Khan alias Jam Riyaz, 39, of Katiganahalli in Karnataka and an inter-state smuggler C. Annadurai, 45, of Salem in Tamil Nadu during raids in different parts of Chittoor district on Friday.
The police team also arrested four associates of the accused and recovered 4 vehicles and 50 red sanders logs. The four accused have been identified as Babu alias Kumar, 50, of PR Patti village in Dharmapuri district, Tamil Nadu, E. Selvaraj, 37, of Pandyangalpatti in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, D. Chakravarthi, 35, of Kollimedu in Tiruvannamalai district, TN and A. Murugesh, 36, of Palamaner in Chittoor district. The offenders are school dropouts.
Smuggler Riyajullah Khan studied up to Class X and earlier, he was a construction material contractor. He took to smuggling in 2012. He used to transport red sanders from Katigana-halli to Mumbai illegally.
Police believe that he smuggled nearly 200 tonne of red sanders to countries, including China, and there are 18 cases regisgtered against him in Chittoor district, besides Kadapa and Tirupati.
Chittoor SP G. Srinivas congratulated additional SP (operations) V. Ratna and police officers of Pichatoor, Rompicherla and Mudivedu for nabbing the gang.
