Tuticorin: Forestry Department personnel attached to the Gulf of the Mannar Marine National Park on Thursday morning seized 750 kg of processed and semi-processed sea cucumbers from seafood makers on the outskirts of Tuticorin and arrested three people.
The trio was arrested when they were a boiling sea cucumber in a warehouse owned by seafood makers in Gomaspuram.
The Department of Forest official said the marine cucumber confiscated by Rs 50 Lakh in the international market.
The forest range officer for Marine National Park R Raghuvaran, who led the search, said the department personnel after completing their routine night rounds on the way to the office at around 1:30 a.m.
when a sharp stench attracted their attention.
The team reaches VSF Enterprises – seafood company – and surrounds the tin sheet that is shed where the sea is boiled in large vessels.
They held K Senthil Kumar, 48, from Thiruvadanai in Ramanathapuram district, a Sathikbatcha, 37, from Thonda in Ramanathapuram district, and Nanthakumar, 21, Thialaya in Tuticorin District, which was inside.
While Senthil Kumar was the second violation of the last time being held by the Sivagang District Police to smuggle the sea cucumber last year, the other two were the first offenders.
The question revealed that they were involved in illegal actions by the violator of Mansoor Ali and Meera Shah who had five and six cases such as them, and owner of Vijayakumar seafood company.
Raghuvaran said that six people were ordered under 14 parts of the wildlife protection law, 1972, and the search was for three other big people.
They must be a sea cucumber to Vedalai in the Ramanathapuram district and smuggled to Sri Lanka by boat.
The procedure is ongoing to seal seafood companies, the ranks of the officers added.