Mangaluru: Customs strive to come on top in 'cat-and-mouse' game with gold smugglers

MANGALURU: Air Customs and preventive wing of Mangaluru customs commissionerate need to be a step or two ahead of gold smugglers. Having booked 52 cases in the current fiscal at Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) seizing total of 17.65-kg of gold up to February 11, they are faced with the need to redouble their efforts to foil novel methods that smugglers constantly employ to clandestinely bring in the yellow metal in to the country.
Unconventional thinking is need of the hour to be a step ahead of smugglers, avers Joannes George, joint commissioner of customs. With MIA one of the major entry points for smuggled gold into India due to its geographical proximity to districts in neighbouring Kerala which are notorious for its gold smuggling rackets operating out of the said districts, it is this constant vigil that has helped Customs nab the above stated quantity of gold, he said.
Noting that is a game of cat and mouse with the smugglers, George said due to tight vigil by the Customs officers at MIA, the department was able to check the activities of smugglers who had come out with novel modus operandi to bring in gold mainly from Saudi Arabia and UAE. Highlights of gold seized at MIA are unusual methods that offenders adopt to hide gold which included hiding under wig and even inside rectum as oval-shaped capsules,
Other methods of concealment included converting gold into paste and hiding it under the sole and in specially stitched pockets in pants, underwears and inside kneecaps, George said, adding smugglers do not favour any one particular modus operandi. They also have attempted to get away with gold by hiding them inside toys, umbrellas, speakers, talcum powders, as metal supporting frame of suitcase, and even as strips within measuring tape.
Baswaraj Nalegave, Commissioner of Customs said the department sensitises officers at MIA on various modus operandi that smugglers/carriers adopt directing them to step up vigil to take on challenges they posed by constantly evolving their tactics to hide gold and other contraband using unsuspecting objects. “We do not focus on a particular MO given lengths that smugglers go to bring in the yellow metal through the Green Channel,” he noted.
From April 2019 to January 2020, the Air Customs at MIA has seized yellow metal weighing 17.65-kgs worth Rs 6.38 crore from a total of 52 smuggling cases registered, he said. The tightened anti-smuggling activities of the department also resulted in arrest of 10 offenders in possession of gold above Rs 20 lakh. Customs also disposed of confiscated gold weighing 23.76-kgs which fetched Rs 9.54 crore this fiscal year till January 2020, Nalegave added.