144-quintal sandalwood worth Rs 50 crore seized in UP's Amroha; 3 arrested

Three men allegedly involved in the illegal export of sandalwood to China and Japan have been arrested and 144 quintals of the expensive timber worth Rs 50 crore has been seized from Uttar Pradesh's Amroha, police said on Monday.

The seizure of the red and white sandalwood, which has medicinal properties and is in high demand in the pharmaceutical industry, took place following a joint raid by the Uttar Pradesh and the Delhi police at a timber warehouse in Amroha, they said.

"Around 1.02 quintal of white sandalwood, 132 quintal of red sandalwood and 11.375 quintal dust of sandalwood has been seized from a timber warehouse in Amroha. The estimated value of the seized sandalwood is approximately Rs 50 crore," the Amroha police said in a statement.  Those arrested have been identified as Arshad Ali Ansari, Mahmood Alam Ansari and Mohammad Salman, all residents of Amroha, the police said.  The three were arrested following a tip-off by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police which had recently arrested a man who disclosed to them about the illegal sandalwood trade.  The accused have told the police that they procured illegally pruned sandalwood from Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Hyderabad in Telangana, among some other places in the country, and brought it to Amroha, they said.

"In Amroha, the sandalwood was stored in the warehouse of a man named Shaqir. Here it was chopped into smaller pieces and then illegally exported to China and Japan, among other places. The sandalwood chips were concealed in items like thermocol and other household items that are exported abroad from this region," according to the police statement.

The Delhi police said the raid was conducted to trace the co-accused Mohammad  Shaqir who has been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 379 (theft) and 120B (party to criminal conspiracy), among others.

All accused in the case have also been booked under relevant provisions of the Indian Forest Act, according to officials.  Accused Shaqir and his father Qamar Ahmad Ansari are absconding and police looking for them, the officials added.  Indian sandalwood is in demand for construction work, furniture, handicrafts and for medicinal purposes. There has been a decline in the produce of sandalwood, which is listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).