TIRUCHY: In what could trigger a spate of raids on airports in the State, sleuths from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday busted a smuggling racket involving Customs officers on the second day of the raid on Tiruchy international airport. The arrested officers, according to the FIR registered by CBI, included Assistant Commissioner M Venkatesulu, Baggage Superintendent Kalugasalamoorthy, Superintendent S Ramakrishnan, Inspectors Anees Fathima, Prashant Goutam, and another staff Freddy Edward. They were taken to Madurai for judicial proceedings.
Of the forty passengers who arrived from Singapore on Sunday and detained for questioning, thirteen were identified as smugglers or kuruvis and arrested, while twenty-five have been detained in the airport for interrogation. The remaining five passengers were set free on Monday morning.
An 11-member CBI team from Madurai led by Superintendent of Police Michael Raj lay in wait in the airport on Sunday in the guise of passengers and visitors. As soon as the Air India flight from Singapore landed at 3.20 pm, they spotted a passenger Dhamayanthi return to the terminal after collecting money from a visitor, later identified as her husband, at the gate and walk out with a baggage trolley. CBI sleuths intercepted her and other passengers.
Interrogations revealed that Customs officials had taken Rs 70,000 and let Dhamayanthi go out without checking the contents of her baggage. According to sources, entry in Dhamayanthi’s passport revealed that she had traveled to Singapore thirty times in the last three months.
A further search revealed the presence of Rs 9,04,000 unaccounted money in Customs safe, along with a note detailing how much each smuggler gave the officers on duty. Besides Dhamayanthi, nine other passengers had given money through a middleman to grease the palms of Customs officials.
More officers arrived as the operation continued for the second day on Monday. Entries in passports were sifted through for clues and around 25 passengers were detained. The raid also set off panic among traders of foreign goods in the city.