4 Chinese among 6 held with Rs 3 crore backpack gold zips in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Customs officials on Friday arrested six people, including four Chinese and two Indians, for smuggling gold through courier and recovered 9kg gold worth Rs 3.3 crore.

Those arrested were Chen Chi-Yu, Chiu Hao-Shen, Huang Guocheng, Zeng Feibiao, Vijay Yadav and his brother Ajay. Vijay and Ajay are directors of GWS Suppliers Pvt Ltd, having its office at Jogeshwari.

The officials, scanning three packets that came by courier, found they contained 86 backpacks with zips made of gold on November 22.

The consignee was GWS. Later, officials kept a watch at GWS's office.

When the courier company delivered the goods, officials raided the premises and arrested Ajay and Vijay, who had imported goods on behalf of Dongguan Diago Wax Co Ltd and Jinwang International Trade Co.

Sources said normally the consignee's addresses are fake, but here they found the address and waited for the courier firm to deliver the goods. Officials found that Jinwang used to pay Rs5,000 per shipment to GWS.

The officials also questioned Chen, Chiu and Zeng when they came to collect their shipment.

The officials raided a flat in Almonda CHS, Nahar Shakti at Chandivli at Powai and seized cut pieces of bags, indicating removal of chains, tool kits, weighing machines, scissors, and a can of sulphuric and nitric acid, which revealed that the accused were extracting gold from the chains. Officials are trying to figure out the loss to the exchequer.

Chiu admitted that at the instance of his boss Ling in China he used to collect shipments of bags from GWS, take off the chains and hand them over to an Indian. Advocate Anand Sachwani for Yadavs said, "My clients have been falsely implicated and have nothing to do with the alleged consignment. The two Chinese are translators and have nothing to do with the consignment."