MALAPPURAM: With the customs increasing vigil at airports, smugglers are adopting innovative ways to stay a step ahead of the authorities. Gone are the days of smuggling in gold as bars or biscuits. Now carriers hide the yellow metal in capsules or electronic gadgets, officers said. Some even convert the metal into paste and wrap it in the shoes, clothes and even wigs.
But with the number of seizures going up, officers suspect that smugglers are now using ‘dummy carriers’ to divert their attention. On Saturday, the custom's Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) at the Kozhikode airport took a Wayanad native into custody based on a tip-off. When the officials grilled him, the youth confessed that he was carrying gold in capsules inside his body.
However, when officers retrieved the contraband, they found only empty capsules. The customs suspect smugglers had used him as a dummy carrier to divert their attention. The real carrier would have managed to sneak out while the officials were busy grilling him. A senior officer said AIU has launched an inquiry into the incident.
Customs took Ijazul Hak Pullambi of Pandikkadavu into custody at 6.40pm based on a tip-off received through an anonymous phone call. The caller said Ijazul, who arrived from Sharjah, was carrying gold. The officials later recovered four capsules from him. On examination, they found capsules did not contain gold compound.
This unusual seizure has made the officials think that Ijazul was used to deceive them. Officiers suspect that he was a scapegoat used to divert their attention from other gold carriers who might have landed at Kozhikode on the same flight.
'He might have turned himself in intentionally'
Another possibility is that Ijazul was trying to hoodwink not just them but also the gold smuggling gang, officers said.
"Certain facts have made us suspicious. We received the tip-off at 6.40pm even though the flight had arrived at 6.15pm. Ijazul had enough time to get out of the airport as he was cleared at the door frame metal detector (DFMD). It looked like he was waiting for us to catch him. When we quizzed him, he immediately confessed that he was carrying gold inside his intestine. But the capsules didn't have gold compound," said a senior official with the AIU.
Ijazul might have turned himself in intentionally, the officer said.
"When we quizzed him, he told us that he was forced to carry the gold for a smuggling gang and that he was beaten up when he refused. He also said he was offered Rs 50,000 to smuggle the gold through the airport. But we suspect that he acted as a cover for other carriers. Or the middleman of this operation and Ijazul were trying to fool the investors," the officer said. The customs team said it would examine the capsules to identify whether it is any form of drug.
Full body scanner to be set up at airport in six months
A customs officer told The New Indian Express that they will set up a full body scanning machine at the airport within six months. This will help customs catch smugglers who conceal gold in their intestines. The machine can identify the gold concealed inside the body.
At present, we check the passengers at door frame metal detector. "Also, we select passengers with suspicious behaviour and past history of smuggling for special checks and subject them to body X-ray scanning. The X-ray scan detects gold in compound form even if it is concealed inside the body. The DFMD and frisking cannot detect this," the officer said.