KOCHI: It may be difficult to believe, but true. The quantity of smuggled gold seized at various airports in Kerala has shrunk by 142.43 kg in the 12-months ended on March 31, 2024, as per the latest official data.
The methods of smuggling, according to the Customs Preventive Commissionerate (CCP), are concealment inside the body, creating the false space of clothes and shoes to hide the gold paste or gold powder in past or compound form. Gold is also concealed in various electronic items such as watches, grinders, trimmers, etc.
The Customs Preventive Commissionerate (CCP) said a total of 487.57 kg of gold was recovered during the 2023-24 fiscal in Kerala, down from 630 kgs in the previous year. Despite the increase in the prices of the yellow metal in 2023-24 financial year, the value of gold seized stood at Rs 287.76 crore compared to Rs 311 crore in 2022-23.
CCP Commissioner K Padmavathy said the smugglers were using various ingenious methods of concealment to bring in the yellow metal. "Concealment inside the body, creating the false space of clothes and shoes to hide the gold paste or gold powder in past or compound form are some ways. Gold was also concealed in various electronic items like watches, grinders, trimmers, etc.," she said in a release.
Rummaging of flights have also led to the seizure of gold concealed inside seat pockets, toilets and from underneath the seats, the Customs Commissioner said.
Apart from gold, customs seized foreign currencies worth Rs 2.56 crore during the 2023-24 fiscal in the state. The seizures were mostly made from both the arrival and departure sides of airports. The currencies seized in airports are US dollars, Saudi Riyals, Bahrain Dinars, Kuwait Dinars, Omani Riyals and UAE Dirhams.
CCP units also seized cigarettes and e-cigarettes worth Rs 3.63 crores. According to the Customs, smuggled tobacco products not only fled the market with low-cost cigarettes but they were coming without mandatory statutory warnings prescribed by the government for Indian-manufactured cigarettes.
Further, the Customs officers recovered as many as 56 smuggled iPhones and their accessories worth Rs 1.26 crores in the last fiscal. As many as 40 kg of saffron worth Rs 52.6 lakhs were seized in a joint operation by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Customs in the state. Customs also combined with the Kerala Excise Department and seized 4.7 kg of ganja from Thrissur in the last fiscal.
Customs is also giving rewards to informers regularly. In the last fiscal year alone Rs 1.07 crore were disbursed to informers who helped the agency in detecting 138 cases. "Along with our efforts and in coordination with various enforcement agencies we are making sincere efforts to prevent smuggling of goods to protect our country," Padmavathy said.
In the calendar year 2023, Kerala stood in third place behind Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in gold seizures across the country. While there were 1357 gold smuggling cases registered in Maharashtra last year, the number of cases in Kerala declined to 728 cases in 2023 from 1,035 in 2022.
