Despite bringing in the latest technology and introducing several measures to check, the novelty and innovation used to smuggle gold into the country boggle the mind. Cases of small-time carriers or ‘kuruvis’ don’t occupy too much space on the crime pages of most dailies, but an investigation by DT Next reveals the sheer creativity employed by smuggling rings to sneak the yellow metal into the country.

Be it in the coating of flasks, to substituting foil in soft drink tetra packs, to melting gold and shaping it into belt buckles and bag accessories to even fashioning it into keys – there appears to be no limit to the variations used. One smuggler even embedded gold bits into homemade chocolates instead of nuts!

According to a senior Customs official, technology is still no match for the human eye when it comes to spotting a smuggler. The official, who did not want to be named, said that regular training helps airport authorities nab the smugglers. For example, in December last year, a passenger who arrived from Kuala Lumpur had concealed two pieces of gold in the sole of his footwear.  A Customs official noticed a slight change in his walk and when they intercepted him and checked his footwear, they recovered two gold bars which weighed about 300 grams. Just a month before that, in November 2018, a person who arrived from Kuala Lumpur peeled the stickers off mobile phone batteries, used those stickers to wrap two pieces of gold that had been shaped into batteries, and inserted it into his phone. However, despite his ingenuity and effort, he was caught.

So, how do the officials nab these smugglers? “We rely heavily on tip-offs. Quite often, rival gang members inform us because they want their ‘competitors’ to get caught,” admitted the officer. “There are more than 400 passengers on different flights at any given time, so the Customs can’t scan each and every passenger,” he explained. In the past year, Customs officials caught more than 700 persons, who tried to bring gold items to the city illegally.

 

Quite often, the so-called smugglers are just poor workers who have been conned into carrying the gold or do so for a very small sum of money. “In the past 10 days, we have intercepted four workers and seized gold weighing 8.5kg from them,” said an Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officer. “Some of them are unaware that the goods they are carrying have gold concealed in it.” According to Customs, smugglers in Saudi “convince” the workers to take these parcels back home. “They often request them to take metal strips or wires with them. Some are given a small fee or their air ticket to India is paid for. This makes them vulnerable. These workers are often semi-literate and are unaware of the consequences,” said the officer.

Authorities said the dire need for money makes workers take such risks. “They are not murderers or rapists. Most of them don’t make enough money as they send their earnings home. They already face bad working conditions where many of them are cramped into a small place, they are made to work prolonged periods and are not allowed to go home for a long time. For such people, the promise of an air ticket to India or some extra money is enough to get them to carry parcels with gold concealed inside,” said the official.

Under the Customs Act, officials can arrest a person carrying smuggled goods worth Rs 20 lakh or above. “In the case of these workers, they are unable to furnish the bail amount, because of which they end up staying in jail. Their families are poor, and the real smugglers just wash their hands of the ‘carrier’. Such workers end up being stuck in jail with no recourse,” said the officer. “There was a recent case of a worker who was paid 1,500 Saudi Riyals, equivalent to around Rs 25,000 for a job. However, after he got caught, his entire savings went in paying his bail bond. And his old employer refused to take him back and he couldn’t even find a job in India after that.” The authorities, now, have a word of caution for migrant workers — never accept parcels. “In one case, the man who was caught was unable to come back to the country even for his father’s death,” said the officer.