The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has initiated a preliminary inquiry against certain Air Customs officials at the international airport here in connection with a few cases of big-ticket gold smuggling.
Officials privy to the development said the agency appeared to be investigating the suspect officers on the charges of possible conspiracy, corruption, and abetment to smuggling.
The exploratory probe appeared linked to the seizure of a sizeable amount of gold from an air passenger at the airport here in early March.
Sources said the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Kochi had reportedly received information that a few check-post enforcers could have had a hand in the smuggling operation that went awry.
The relationship between conspirators had apparently soured for unknown reasons, and it purportedly resulted in a tip-off to the Customs (Preventive). The unit rushed top enforcers from Kochi to Thiruvananthapuram to arrest the carrier and seize the contraband.
Sources said intelligence about an expansive Gulf-based gold smuggling network that channelled significant amounts of gold into Kerala through the Thiruvananthapuram airport could have prompted the CBI’s initiatory probe.
Preliminary reports suggest that the network might have used a matrix of carriers, corrupt check-post officials, and auxiliary airport staff to facilitate their profitable operation.
The Air Customs unit here, though skeletally staffed, has an unusually high detection rate. It seized nearly 14 kg of gold during the 2017-2018 (till February) period. Enforcers arrested several carriers in the process. However, it was impossible to know the “failure-to-detect rate”.
In anti-corruption cases, the CBI usually verified the income status of suspect officials to gauge complicity.
There had been a startling rise in the amount of gold smuggled into Kerala since the Union government hiked its import duty in 2014 to reduce the country’s worrying current account deficit.
The differential between the price for gold in the Gulf and India has fuelled the smuggling.
