Police seized about 70 kg of ganja valued at over ₹ 15 lakh near Nagari, 65 km from here, on Saturday and caught five people, including four women, when the contraband was transported from Nellore to Chennai.
Following a tip-off, the additional superintendent of the police (Special Enforcement Bureau) Y. Rishant Reddy and the deputy SP (Puttur) TD Yashwant formed a special team to arrest a woman who was suspicious of herself on the national road between Puttur and Nagari. moved. According to her, the police in Nagari intercepted a four-passenger SUV. When the four tried to escape by getting out of the vehicle, they were caught. The vehicle with ganja in rubber bags was confiscated and taken to Nagari City Police Station.
Inspector Maddaiah Achari said police surveillance of the highway towards Chennai has been stepped up to control ganja smuggling across the border. Of the five defendants, three women and the driver were from Kota, Nellore District, while one woman was from Nagari Mandal. For the first time, the police arrested four women in a case of ganja smuggling.
The police said that the ganja peddling gangs took advantage of the COVID lockdown to move the stocks from the agency areas of Visakhapatnam district to the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.