Cops hot on trail of smugglers

They are high profile persons and their modus operandi is to act as middlemen for international smugglers and local smugglers and organise the export of logs. “Our task is to find out how many are there, what is their structure, who is their main links and contacts in foreign countries. A strategy is being chalked out to bring them into the gambit of law and seize the assets and properties they amassed through smuggling. The department is bent upon eradicating the smuggling from root level to prevent reoccurrence of the illegal activity,” sources in Chittoor police said.

According to sources, police teams dealing with red sander smugglers have already nabbed majority of local smugglers under PD Act and also opened suspect sheets and rowdy sheets against them. The remaining are under close surveillance. Most of the interstate smugglers, who make deals between local and national level smugglers, have also been detained. They are the ones transporting the precious wood from this region to the national level smugglers.

The source struck down reports on difficulties being faced by investigation teams because of la-nguage barrier while interrogating the international smuggler and Chinese national Yang Ping.

“He has been using software to converse with others including his links in red sander smuggling whenever he was India. The same software has been used during interrogation and there were no hassles. Entire exercise was also recorded and it was translated to English using a web tool. His confession statement and interrogation report also completed,” the sources added.

Except three, all those who had links with Yang Ping have been arrested and the teams are almost zeroed on the three and ready to strike.