Wayanad: Excise officials seized unaccounted cash worth Rs 40 lakh, suspected to be hawala money, from the luggage box of a Kozhikode-bound KSRTC Swift bus at Muthanga check-post during a vehicle check on Thursday. 

The check was conducted after the tip-off received by the excise team headed by Excise Inspector Thambi AG and Excise preventive officer Manoj Kumar PK.

The parcel has been handed over to the Excise Range office and would be produced before the Sulthan Bathery court on Friday, Thambi said.

According to the bus conductor, a person from Mysore handed him the parcel and told him that the owner of the parcel would receive it either from Thamarassery or Koduvally. The man also told the crew that he does not know the parcel's content.

The excise special wing is on a round-the-clock alert in the border check-post following intelligence tip-off that hawala money and drugs are being smuggled into the state through Muthanga in KSRTC as well as private buses plying on the Bengaluru-Kozhikode route, Thmabi said.