India, Oct. 4 -- A truck carrying steel pipes was allegedly being used to smuggle 500kg of cannabis worth around Rs.5 crore when the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) intercepted it in Nagpur on Sunday and arrested three men linked to an inter-state drug trafficking network.

The cannabis had allegedly been brought from Sambalpur in Odisha and was hidden among the pipes in a commercial goods carrier. It was meant to be handed over to a Nagpur-based receiver before being distributed in Jalna, Maharashtra, and Indore, Madhya Pradesh, officials said.

The NCB's Mumbai unit had been tracking information about a Nagpur-based network allegedly procuring ganja from Odisha and moving it to different parts of Maharashtra.

Officials said the network ...