Forest officials head for Assam to nab smuggler

Mumbai: The Thane Forest Department (TFD) is set to send a team to Assam to seek cooperation from that state’s forest department in nabbing the accused involved in smuggling 80 kg of agarwood and 10 litre of agarwood oil last week to Mumbai. It must be noted that agarwood is banned in Maharashtra. Last week, a passenger smuggling agarwood was caught at the city airport by Mumbai customs and handed over to the forest department.

According to officials, the fake permit that the passenger was carrying was made in the name of Assam Forest Department (AFD). The forest department (FD) had arrested a resident of Assam who was smuggling 80 kg of agarwood and 10 litre of its oil. The passenger after being caught was handed over to the FD after which it was established that he had a fake permit stating that the AFD had allowed him to carry agarwood.  

“Though the final dates are yet to be decided, we are planning to visit the place in order to find out the base where such fake permits are being created leading to smuggling banned items,” said a forest officer. Sameer Inamdar, round forest officer of TFD said that the department was working towards catching hold of the main person whom the deliveryman would hand over the smuggled agarwoods. “We have collected all the call details and aim to catch hold of the kingpin soon,” he said.