The Chittoor Task Force police on Saturday displayed the seized gold and silver articles and documents of flats worth over Rs. 3 crore, belonging to Sangeetha Chatterjee, a Kolkata based former airhostess involved in red sanders smuggling operations at the Police Guest House here.
At a press conference, Additional SP V. Ratna and Deputy Superintendent of Police (Special operations) V. Giridhar said a special party from Chittoor had seized 2.15 kg gold and 1 kg silver ornaments, documents of three flats, nine mobile phones and a laptop from two lockers of a UCO Bank branch in Kolkata on June 9 by following the legal procedures. This operation was a sequel to the May 6 inter-State raid on Sangeetha’s house in Kolkata. She is wanted in three cases of red sanders smuggling in Chittoor district. The Task Force further detected the clandestine business links between Sangeetha and Chennai-born and Kolkata settled notorious red sanders smuggler Markondas Lakshmanan, currently lodged in Kadapa Central Prison under the Preventive Detection Act (PD Act).
Interim bail
The officials said though the Chittoor police arrested Sangeetha on May 6, she could obtain interim bail from a designated court in Kolkata, which twice directed her to appear before the Chittoor court on May 18 and 30. On both occasions, the bail order was extended following her appeal on health grounds. As per the latest order, She has to appear before Chittoor court on June 20.
They said Lakshmanan, during his stay in Kolkata prior to his arrest, developed intimacy with Sangeetha. During the last couple of years, he had transferred several crores into her account as part of the transactions in the smuggling. After his arrest last year, she took charge of the transactions spread all over the South East Asian countries.
