CHENNAI: The CBI has booked four customs officers, four Chennai-based jewellers and a representative of a logistics firm in the alleged diversion of 2,170 kg of gold worth Rs 941 crore investigated by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Customs in 2022.
CBI’s FIR cites a customs report indicating that the officers may have been paid a bribe of Rs 6 crore from November 2020 to January 2022, with other evidence indicating their undeclared immovable properties and their involvement in allowing gold smugglers to pass through the airport without checks.
CBI, which had searched around 10 locations in the city and suburbs on Saturday, made the August 20 FIR public on Monday. The suspects are J Suresh Kumar, Alok Shukla and P Thulasi Ram, customs superintendents; N Samuel Deepak Avinash, Customs appraiser; A Mariappan of BSM Logistics; Deepak Siroya of Siroya Jewellers, Santosh Kothari of Shree Kalyan Jewellery, Sunil Parmar of Sunil Jewellers and Sunil Sharma of Shree Balaji Jewellers. All the jewellery shop owners are based in Sowcarpet. The suspects have been charged under sections for corruption, criminal conspiracy and cheating.
CBI took up the case in June 2023 based on a letter issued by Chennai Customs which alleged that private jewellers conspiring with officers posted in air cargo complex exported fake jewellery (copper or brass coated with 10% gold) in lieu of imported gold bullion through designated agencies and diverted rest of the gold into the black market, proceeds of which were sent via hawala to Dubai. By declaring the gold-plated jewellery as 22-carat gold, the syndicate also availed of benefit of customs duty on imported gold.
TNIE had exclusively reported this in a three-part series in October last year based on two final investigation reports filed by DRI, which pegged the diverted gold at 2,170 kg worth
Rs 941 crore. Nearly 2,612 kg of gold-plated jewellery was exported fraudulently to Dubai and Malaysia in the two-year period. Suresh Kumar, Alok Shukla, Thulasi Ram and Samuel Avinash were the officers who were responsible for examining the shipping bills of the jewellers and fraudulently passed them by certifying fake jewellery as genuine by taking bribes, the CBI said. Mariappan was their customs house agent in all the cases. For every gram of fake jewellery exported, the officers received a bribe of Rs 50 which was delivered to their cars.
The investigation also found that Suresh Kumar, Alok Shukla and Samuel Avinash worked as jewellery examiners even when they were not rostered by the department.
During searches by DRI at Suresh Kumar’s house, 1,675 gm of 24-carat gold chains and evidence of several immovable properties purchased by him were found which he could not account for. Evidence from his phone showed details of his assistance during airport shift duty to ‘courier’ passengers involved in smuggling.
Customs said that the jewellers hatched the plan to obtain gold bullion from designated agency, HDFC Bank and public sector unit MMTC, and sold it in black to three jewellers in Chennai. The cash generated was sent to Dubai via hawala.
Meanwhile, covering gold jewellery manufactured in Rajkot, Kolkata and Chennai (10% gold) was declared as 22 carat and exported. It was coated with gold so that the spectrophotometer would give reading as per carat declaration on shipping bill.