BENGALURU: Gold smugglers have a new modus operandi — exploit unsuspecting domestic airlines operating on international routes to smuggle the yellow metal in and out of India. They also use the aircraft as a conduit or a channel to transfer gold and illegally hoarded US dollar transactions to bypass the customs.
A Mumbai-based syndicate, running an international network, has been found to be involved in this new modus operandi. Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have confirmed that the syndicate operates from all international airports in India, including Kempegowda International Airport.
On April 13, DRI officials intercepted two passengers, K Motwani and D Bhambani, arriving at KIA from Ahmedabad by Indigo airline, and recovered 2.5 kg of gold from them.
Their interrogation revealed a shocker: “They told us that the flight - 6E58 - had originally come from Singapore to Ahmedabad before it came to Bengaluru, from where it was scheduled to return to Singapore. Their counterpart in Singapore had handed over the parcel of contraband gold to a ‘passenger’ who had secreted it in the toilet cavity of the aircraft before he got off at Ahmedabad.”
Motwani, Bhambani and their associate Pankaj got into the same aircraft at Ahmedabad, which was to return to Singapore via Bengaluru with $ 2 lakh (equivalent to `1.4 cr), which was meant to be paid to the handler at Singapore for the gold he had supplied.
“At KIA, while Motwani and Bhambani got off the aircraft with the smuggled gold, Pankaj was supposed to continue with the same flight to Singapore on Indigo 6E73 with $2 lakh, which he would have retrieved from the aircraft before getting off at Singapore,” said an official source.
The officer said the new modus operandi is used on other airlines operating international routes as well. The case also exposes the lacuna in foreign exchange rules, strictly governed by the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI). In the last one year DRI Bengaluru has detected 15 such cases and seized 36.569 kgs of gold worth over Rs.11.30 crore.
Over 4 kg gold seized at KIA from Gulf returnees
In one of the largest seizures of gold at Kempegowda International Airport, customs officials on Thursday seized over 4 kg of gold worth T1.31 crore from two passengers coming from Muscat and Dubai. Both hail from Karnataka. In the first seizure, 3.678 kg of gold was recovered from a passenger hailing from Chamrajanagar, who was coming to the city by Emirates flight No EK-358 from Dubai. The gold was recovered from his check-in luggage after customs officials found his body language and response to queries suspicious, and decided to closely examine his baggage.
He was carrying a bench vice (a device used to hold a workpiece which is used in many woodwork and metalwork) inside which the gold was concealed. Two gold bars weighing 1 kg each and four cut pieces of gold bars were covered with black insulation tape and were packed inside a small compartment made of thick iron sheets inside the bench vice. In the second incident, a passenger travelling to Bengaluru from Muscat via AI-978 was found carrying 358.44 gm of gold valued at T11.75 lakh in his hand baggage. Gold was concealed in the handle of the trolley bag.