Bhubaneswar: Deogarh police on Saturday seized a kg of alleged snake poisons in dry form and detained two men while trying to sell it for Rs 1.5 Crore.
Poison can easily take anything between Rs 2 Crore to Rs 5 Crore in the Gray Market, a source familiar with the trade of Venom Snake.
Deogarh Sub-Division Officer (SDO) Pratyush Kumar Mohaparna said Kailash Chandra Sahu (36) and Ranjan Kumar Padhi (42), both native Sambalpur, was arrested after they tried to sell poisons to customers established as bait by the police.
After the agreement was beaten, both of them reached Sindurpankh below the limit of the Sambalpur conscious police station.
Both demanded Rs 1.5 Crore and before they could realize anything, the police swooped and arrested them.
“We will send poisons to the laboratory for the exam,” said Mohapatra.
This is the second time the illegal trade of Venom Snake has been lit in the state of this year.
In March, the Ministry of Forestry has damaged a similar racket and arrested six people in Bhubaneswar.
About a liter of snake poisons in liquid form and worth around RS 1.3 Crore confiscated.
No agents or individuals authorized in Odisha to extract snake poisons, which are used in the pharmaceutical industry for anti-poison production among other drugs.
The police are investigating whether poisons are collected in Odisha or come from outside because the package in the container said ‘made in France’.
Venom is generally collected in liquid form and needs to be processed to turn it into a dry state, which has no facilities in the state.
Subhendu Mallik, who runs the lines of snake assistance, said efforts with law enforcement agencies and wildlife departments are needed to get rid of illegal trade in Snake Vacom.
The source said, poisons were extracted after capturing reptiles and then let it bite the container to collect poisons.
Collected poisons are used in a number of pharmaceutical research and applications.
It is also used as an added value product that will be mixed with narcotics drugs.