Smugglers are looking for new routes to slip gold into the State illegally without being detected by Customs and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials.
While ample amount of gold has been seized at the Cochin International Airport from passengers arriving from places such as Dubai, Sharjah, Singapore, or Malaysia, the Customs department on Tuesday seized about 1.5 kg gold from a passenger who landed here from Maldives. The gold was concealed in the beading of the suitcase carried by the 26-year-old Kasaragod native.
“Smugglers are routing gold through different countries as a decoy. In this case, the gold was bought from Dubai, but handed over to the carrier at Male in Maldives so that it could be carried into the country,” said a Customs official.
With law enforcers closely monitoring passengers from countries that see a high smuggling activity, smugglers route the gold through other countries to escape suspicion. What alerted Customs officials about the possibility that the passenger was carrying contraband was that he had been in the foreign country for a single day. He flew to Male from the airport at Kochi on September 1 and returned the very next day.
His handler, a Kasaragod native based in Dubai, allegedly bought the gold from the Gulf country and contacted the accused, asking him to fly to Male for a job. The two met in Maldives, where the gold was melted, coated on thin iron rods and slipped into the plastic beading of the suitcase. The carrier’s responsibility was to simply bring the luggage back to Kochi and hand it over to an agent of the smuggling racket. The agent would then bring the yellow metal to goldsmiths and jewellers in the State, who use it to make ornaments.
“Our department, however, is aware of this modus operandi and are keeping a close watch on passengers coming in,” the official said. Huge volume of gold is still being smuggled into the country from the Gulf countries, Malaysia, and Singapore, through airports in Mumbai, Mangalore, and Kochi. Countries like Maldives too, however, are on the radar of the smugglers and Customs officials.
