Police arrested two persons on Tuesday on the charge of smuggling red sandalwood in a tourist bus coming from New Delhi. Although police have identified the arrestees as Jhilkeman Rumba, driver of the bus and Sujan Pun, helper, but they are yet to identify the owner of the vehicle who is still at large.
“We confiscated 11 kg of red sandalwood that were concealed in the bus that had arrived in Kathmandu from New Delhi,” said chief of Metropolitan Police Range, Teku, SSP Bishwo Pokhrel. “We were keeping a close tab on the activities of the bus for the past few weeks.”
The driver confessed that they had brought such goods from New Delhi twice. “The driver told us that he does not know the vehicle owner. This suggests there is a bigger racket involved in the smuggling. We have launched an investigation to get to the root of the group,” SSP Pokhrel said. Police also seized contraband clothes and electronic goods from the bus (Na 4 Kha 4516).
Police had set up a check point following a tip-off on ongoing smuggling. Police believe that the smuggled red sandalwood is mostly destined for China. There had been a perceived lull in smuggling of the red sandalwood in the past few years, except for sporadic cases of smugglers employing innovative methods to ship the contraband across the borders. The red sandalwood is traded at ridiculously high amount—up to Rs3 million per kilogram if smugglers could make it to Khasa border town. The trade in and supply of red sandalwood is illegal in Nepal as per the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
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