The police on Saturday seized about 70 kg of ganja worth over ₹15 lakh and nabbed five persons, including four women, near Nagari, 65 km from here, when the contraband was being transported to Chennai from Nellore.
Acting on a tip-off, Additional Superintendent of Police (Special Enforcement Bureau) Y. Rishant Reddy and Deputy SP (Puttur) T.D. Yashwant formed a special team, which took a woman into custody while moving suspiciously on the national highway between Puttur and Nagari. Based on information provided by her, the police intercepted an SUV with four passengers in Nagari. When the four tried to flee abandoning the vehicle, they were nabbed. The vehicle with ganja packed in gunny sacks was seized and shifted to the Nagari urban police station.
Inspector Maddaiah Achari said that the police surveillance was intensified on the highway towards Chennai to check ganja smuggling across the border. Of the five accused, three women and the vehicle driver hailed from Kota in Nellore district, while one woman was from Nagari mandal. It was for the first time that the police had arrested four women in a ganja smuggling case.
The police said taking advantage of the COVID lockdown, the gangs involved in ganja peddling had turned active transporting the stocks from the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam district to the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.