Thanjavur cops foil bid to smuggle ganja worth Rs 2 crore to Sri Lanka, 14 held

A special team of police from Thanjavur, on Wednesday, seized ganja worth Rs 2 crore that was smuggled from Andhra Pradesh and was about to be transported to Sri Lanka. A total of 14 people have been arrested.

Thanjavur DPS A Kayalvizhi formed a special team and ordered raids across the delta region after receiving tip-offs of ganja smuggling. 

The teams organised vehicle checks and during one such instance the team found a mini lorry suspicious and conducted inspection. It was found that a machine belonging to a Bihar thermal power plant was brought to TN for repair. 

Smelling something fishy, the cops probed further and finally came across 250 kg ganja packs worth Rs 2 crore concealed in the machine.

The police secured the vehicle’s occupants and conducted a detailed interrogation where they learnt they were middle men from Vedaranyam, Pattukkottai and Madurai who would procure large quantities of the contraband and transport them to SL. 

The ganja was smuggled from Visakhapatnam and reached TN via Vellore. Then they would be divided into small quantities with a maximum of three kilograms and be transported to Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam and Muthupettai in Tiruvarur from where they would be transported to Sri Lanka by country boats.

The police found that the initial price for ganja, which was Rs 3,000 per kg, was sold at Rs 20,000 per kg to the middlemen who would sell them at Rs 50,000 per kg in Sri Lanka.