Five smuggling bids thwarted at Cochin International Airport on Sunday

KOCHI: Customs officers at the Cochin International Airport had a busy day on Sunday, with five smuggling attempts being thwarted within a 24-hour period. Indicating a spurt in smuggling syndicates ramping up their illegal operations via CIAL, seven smuggling bids were foiled by the sleuths last week.

According to Customs Commissioner Sumit Kumar, a gold rod weighing 233 grams concealed inside a ballpoint pen; a crude gold chain weighing 541.5 grams; three gold coins and one gold ring weighing 90 grams and foreign currencies worth `26.34 lakh and `18.95 lakh were seized by the sleuths on Sunday.

As many as four gold smuggling cases, two foreign currency smuggling attempt cases and one case related to smuggling out hashish have been reported at CIAL since January 22. Around 1.2 kg of gold worth Rs 36,11,229 have been seized during the last one week.

Similarly, foreign currencies having a total value of Rs 45. 29 lakh were recovered in two separate seizures. Hashish oil weighing 1.62 kg, worth around Rs 6 lakh, was also seized.  

In the current fiscal, more than 60 persons have been detained for attempting to smuggle in gold, currencies and narcotic products through CIAL. Sumit Kumar said intelligence gathering has been enhanced to detect smuggling activities. 

COFEPOSA detention

An Afghanistan national, who was caught while trying to smuggle C11-crore worth foreign currencies in June last year, has been placed under COFEPOSA detention.

Though detention order was issued by COFEPOSA board a few months ago, Mohammed Seddiq Yousuffi went absconding.

He was taken into custody by Customs officers and handed over to the Kerala Police last week. Customs units are conducting investigation into the involvement of an international racket that smuggles out foreign currencies as part of hawala chain abroad.