Foreigner held with 75 kg sandalwood at Mumbai airport

An African national has been arrested at the Mumbai airport for allegedly carrying 75 kgs of sandalwood worth approximately Rs 4.9 lakh, CISF officials said on Monday.

Bakri Abbas Hussain Ahmed, a Sudanese national, was scheduled to fly to Addis Ababa by an Ethiopian Airways flight on Sunday, they said.

During the screening of his bag through the X-BIS machine near the departure gate number-3 of Terminal-2 of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International (CSMI) Airport, suspicious items were noticed, the officials said.

On physical checking, 75 kgs of sandalwood wrapped in plastic sheet were found, they said, adding that Ahmed could not give any satisfactory answers.

The passenger along with the recovered sandalwood was handed over to the Forest Department for further legal action, the officials added.