Three men were arrested on Wednesday at the Calcutta airport with red sandalwood logs and artefacts weighing 216kg and worth several crores of rupees.
Police said the men, Md Ershad Shahid, Hussain Arif and Imran Hussain, were residents of Kidderpore and frequent international fliers holding privilege cards with a premium airline.
They had checked in 10 bags before Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, in charge of security at the airport, and NSCBI airport police station officers apprehended them.
The police detained an airline staff member for allowing them to check in the bags without verifying its contents.
“We had a tip-off about a gang smuggling items out of India. The men had booked a flight from Calcutta to Hong Kong via Delhi. We had posted our officers in the terminal and the men were identified around 10am,” said Bishop Sarkar, deputy commissioner, airport division, Bidhannagar City Police.
“There were 16 sandalwood logs and thousands of artefacts and miniature items carved out of sandalwood. The men could not furnish documents for the seized goods and were arrested,” he said.
The three men had multiple visa stamps on their passports. “They were frequent fliers and privileged business class customers,” the police said.