Six people were arrested for allegedly smuggling two pieces of ambergris worth Rs 73.6 lakh in a car in Gujarat’s Anand town on Friday.
A release from the Anand district special operations group said the police, acting on a tip-off, were waiting at Prapti Circle when they found the six accused near a grey sedan bearing a Vadodara registration number.
“The team cordoned off the car and found two dubious, asymmetric pieces of a substance in a plastic bag inside the car. The accused revealed that it was ambergris. However, they did not provide a satisfactory reply when asked about the source and the destination of the substance,” the police said.
The police added that the accused were perhaps waiting for a buyer to hand over the ambergris, which weighed 735g.
The accused were identified as Girish Gandhi (58), Vikram Patadiya (48), Meet Gandhi (21), Meet Vyas (23)—all residents of Vadodara—and Dhruvil Patel (22) and Zahoor Mansuri (61), from Anand district. Arrested under Criminal Procedure Code’s Section 41(1), they were handed over to the Anand town police.
Sub-inspector HM Rana said, “We called in forest department and forensic science laboratory officials to the spot… The forest department will now suggest the exact sections of the Wildlife Protection Act under which the accused should be booked.”