Sandalwood smuggle: Caught in the act

The Rivira Newspaper revealed that, a 150 kg sandalwood bulk smuggled to Pakistan was caught by the Sri Lanka Customs on 25th October 2012. A 28 year old Pakistani national has been arrested for smuggling the above sandalwood bulk hiding in betel leaves that were to be exported also to Pakistan. Being Pakistan is one of the main buyers of Sri Lanka grown betel leaves, daily export of betel leaves is not an uncommon practice. Due to the perishable nature, those are transported by air and therefore the smuggler may have thought to use the same way to transport the sandalwood bulk. When questioned, it was revealed that those logs were obtained from the trees illegally felled from Sri Lanka Government Forest Reservations.