DRI busts smuggling racket, seizes 17.9kg gold worth Rs 6 crore
TNN | Feb 23, 2019, 06:53 IST
17.9 kg of foreign-origin gold worth ₹6.24 crore had been smuggled into the city using carriers and air passe... Read MoreCHENNAI: Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on Thursday busted a major gold smuggling syndicate in the city, raiding a hideout at an undisclosed location and another at Mannady near Parry’s, and seizing 17.9 kg of foreign-origin gold worth Rs 6.24 crore.
Six people including the kingpin of the racket, his aide and two carriers were arrested and a Toyota Innova, a Hyundai Creta and a Honda Amaze, used to transport the smuggled goods to the den in Mannady were seized.
The gold had been smuggled into the city through the airport from foreign countries using carriers and air passengers, DRI said. It was concealed in domestic appliances and gadgets like home theatres and microwave ovens and taken to the Mannady hideout where the contraband was to be later extracted, a DRI official said.
The sleuths also found a large number of iPhones, smartwatches, USB chips, solid state storage devices, camera lenses and cigarettes worth Rs 1.1 crore, all smuggled in and intended for sale in the black market. Indian and foreign currency amounting to Rs 33 lakh, believed to be from the sale of smuggled gold and other goods, was seized.
DRI officials suspect that the cash was to be routed back through hawala channel. “Interrogation of the apprehended people reveals that the syndicate had been working in co-ordination with a mastermind in Malaysia,” an official said.
The modus operandi of the syndicate was simple, he said. Passengers returning to India from places like Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia would be identified by gang members. He/she would then approach the passenger and coax him/her to carry these appliances and gadgets to India. On landing at Chennai airport, the passenger’s job would be to hand the goods over to an earmarked person in the airport parking lot for a small fee. Almost all of the passengers approached by the syndicate members would seem like genuine travellers, making the chances of Customs officials getting suspicious remote, the official said.
On February 18, a DRI team had seized 5.72 kg gold worth Rs 1.97 crore from a plane at Chennai airport. The gold was concealed inside the hollow of a seat in the plane. On the same day, the agency’s officials also seized 1.13kg of gold worth Rs 37.41 lakh from a group of passengers arriving at Trichy airport from Malaysia.
Further investigations are on, a DRI official said.
Six people including the kingpin of the racket, his aide and two carriers were arrested and a Toyota Innova, a Hyundai Creta and a Honda Amaze, used to transport the smuggled goods to the den in Mannady were seized.
The gold had been smuggled into the city through the airport from foreign countries using carriers and air passengers, DRI said. It was concealed in domestic appliances and gadgets like home theatres and microwave ovens and taken to the Mannady hideout where the contraband was to be later extracted, a DRI official said.
The sleuths also found a large number of iPhones, smartwatches, USB chips, solid state storage devices, camera lenses and cigarettes worth Rs 1.1 crore, all smuggled in and intended for sale in the black market. Indian and foreign currency amounting to Rs 33 lakh, believed to be from the sale of smuggled gold and other goods, was seized.
DRI officials suspect that the cash was to be routed back through hawala channel. “Interrogation of the apprehended people reveals that the syndicate had been working in co-ordination with a mastermind in Malaysia,” an official said.
The modus operandi of the syndicate was simple, he said. Passengers returning to India from places like Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia would be identified by gang members. He/she would then approach the passenger and coax him/her to carry these appliances and gadgets to India. On landing at Chennai airport, the passenger’s job would be to hand the goods over to an earmarked person in the airport parking lot for a small fee. Almost all of the passengers approached by the syndicate members would seem like genuine travellers, making the chances of Customs officials getting suspicious remote, the official said.
On February 18, a DRI team had seized 5.72 kg gold worth Rs 1.97 crore from a plane at Chennai airport. The gold was concealed inside the hollow of a seat in the plane. On the same day, the agency’s officials also seized 1.13kg of gold worth Rs 37.41 lakh from a group of passengers arriving at Trichy airport from Malaysia.
Further investigations are on, a DRI official said.
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