Chennai: Chennai city police arrested on Wednesday, a suspected red sanders smuggler from the city, when they raided a carrom board manufacturing unit in Jafferkhanpet near Ashok Nagar. A team from the Chennai city crime branch which raided the premises of City Carroms located on Kasi Estate seized 3 tonnes of red sanders worth over Rs 5 crore from there, besides arresting Vishal Kumar, proprietor of the carrom board manufacturing unit.

“We have also picked up five of his employees and are questioning them to know more about his modus operandi,” a CCB official said. Vishal initially told police that he did not know much about the red sanders as the stock was given by somebody else to him for safekeeping.

Police are not ready to buy his explanation and believe that he has links with the red sanders smuggling network. Though police have been seizing red sanders from the outskirts of the city, this is the first time they stumbled on a red sanders godown very much inside the city.