A court specialising in economic offences in Kochi has ordered the security of the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to preserve the surveillance camera footage relating to the seizure of nearly 25 kg of gold by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) from an air-passenger here on May 13.
The seizure had kicked off a wide-ranging anti-smuggling investigation that had over the past five months targeted at least one Customs official and several alleged members of a Dubai-based gold-smuggling cartel.
It had also prompted the Central government last week to call for the preventive detention of six of the accused under the provisions of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling (COFEPOSA) Act.
The court has asked the commandant of the Central Industrial Security Force, Thiruvananthapuram airport, to “maintain the visuals from aerobridge to the exit gate” in the hours before and after the gold seizure.
Petition by suspect
Officials privy to the investigation said the court had passed the order in mid-June based on a miscellaneous criminal petition filed by one of the suspects.
The accused had challenged the circumstance of the arrest and said DRI agents had boarded the flight to seize the gold.
The agents allegedly did not give the air-passenger a chance to declare the gold at the Customs check-post.
Officials said the argument was flawed and the DRI followed the arrest procedure correctly. The passenger was carrying contraband gold much above the legally permissible quantity.
The smugglers sold the bullion to wholesale jewellery makers who converted the gold into machine-crafted jewellery at unregistered backyard factories operated in rented houses.
The manufacturers sold the ornaments to showrooms without a bill or any record of the transaction.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the anti-corruption angle in the case.
The case had also raised questions about the CBI’s apparent floundering as a watchdog agency to curb graft at the airport.
