Gold and foreign cigarettes topped the list of commodities seized by the Customs Preventive Commissionerate (CPC)-Vijayawada in Krishna, Guntur and East and West Godavari districts and Yanam during the financial year 2015-16.
These four districts and Yanam constitute the Customs Preventive Division (CPD) based at Kakinada.
There was only one case of gold smuggling but the value of the contraband was Rs.1.46 crore. It was in February this year at Rajahmundry railway station that the gold being smuggled in the form of granules concealed in the compressor of a water dispenser, was found in the possession of a person travelling from Siliguri to Chennai.
Officials of the CPD-Kakinada conducted the raid and seized the valuable commodity with the help of Railway Protection Force (RPF) on a tip-off.
In terms of the number of cases, cigarettes that originated in foreign countries (FOC) topped the list. A total of 29 cases involving FOC worth nearly Rs.33.30 lakh were booked during the year and the seized commodity was destroyed as per norms.
Besides, cases were registered for violating the Customs rules in importing raw sugar and for smuggling iron scrap and waste oil.
Most of the seizures were in the purview of the CPC’s Shore Guard Prevention Units (SGPU) at Kakinada and Machilipatnam, according to official sources.
Of the 36 cases booked , 16 were in the jurisdiction of Kakinada Custom House, 10 in Machilipatnam SGPU and five each in Kakinada and Narsapur SGPU.
RPF’s cooperation
These are the places through which foreign cigarettes and other commodities are smuggled. The smuggled goods are sometimes moved by trains. The CPC has been conducting regular checks with the cooperation of RPF and doing patrolling in coastal villages jointly with the marine police.
A tight vigil is kept at railways stations also. Besides, the scores of fish-landing points across the coast, which offer convenient places for the smugglers to carry out their illegal activities, are scanned from time to time.
A senior CPC official told The Hindu that ‘interaction programmes’ are conducted with fisherfolk at regular intervals to sensitise them about the smuggling rackets and the danger of anti-national forces creeping in through the porous maritime boundaries.
