The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has focussed attention on a gold chain manufacturer in connection with its investigation into the seizure of bullion weighing 25 kg from the bag of an air-passenger who alighted at the international airport here from Dubai on Monday.
Investigators said the firm was the favoured customer of the Dubai-based smuggling ring.
It had used educated women to illegally bring in large amounts of gold into the country through the Thiruvananthapuram airport.
Tacit pact with Customs
The DRI suspects that a tacit agreement struck by the firm with a set of Customs officials had allowed the smugglers to operate with impunity for over a year.
The firm had kitted out rented houses in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode with high-end gold smelting and automatic chain-making machines.
Officials said the firm supplied machine-crafted gold necklaces to a host of major jewellery chains in south India and the transactions were without bill and mostly off the record.
The manufacturer specialised in the latest Italian designs and operated a showroom in Kozhikode.
Case in 2014
In 2014, the firm had briefly come on the radar of law enforcers when tax inspectors charged the company with duty evasion and confiscated 40 kg of gold ornaments it had put on display at an exhibition in Kochi.
Officials said the ownership of the firm is itself a mystery.
The directors were nominees of unknown investors who periodically chipped in vast amounts of money to buy gold cheap in Dubai.
They used smuggling rings, like the one busted by the DRI, to bring the stuff illegally into India.
The managers of the firm bribed corrupt airport insiders to ensure the safe passage of carriers through the Customs check-post.
Investigators said the firm stood to make a four to five-fold profit on bullion smuggled into the country by converting them into machine-printed designer necklaces.
Machines examined
The DRI has reportedly examined the machines in a bid to fathom the amount of contraband gold converted into necklaces.
The firm rarely bought bullion legally.
There was a considerable mismatch in raw material shown on stock and production.
