Nagpur: It seems the Second Capital of the State just can’t keep itself away from headlines for dubious reasons! While the dust on the Betel Nuts smuggling rackets, which triggered a series of Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids in the city, was just starting to settle down, Nagpur found itself on ‘World Map’ this time again, for wrong reasons only!
According to a report published by The Indian Express, since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar prompted Western sanctions on timber trade from that country, India has emerged as a favourite pit-stop on this dubious global trail. And Indian companies are appearing on global watch lists for having exported timber in defiance of sanctions, with one company even indicted by a German court.
In September 2021, tracking their financial trail and supply chains, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reported how Friends Timber was part of a sprawling network of European timber companies. Friends Timber, located in Nagpur’s Kapsi Khurd area, had exported Myanmar teak to a range of EU companies as recently as October 2022, according to Dutch newspaper NRC.
While the directors Sameer Jaiswal and Puneet Kohli admitted that more than 80,000 metric tonnes of teak were imported from Myanmar, they claimed payments for this were made prior to the military coup in 2021 and denied any wrongdoing.
