THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Believe it or not, hybrid ganja is fast emerging as the new ‘gold’ for international smuggling cartels having Kerala links. The Union government slashing the customs duty on imported gold from 15% to 6% in July 2024 has weaned many of the rackets away from smuggling of the precious metal and some of them have switched to smuggling of hybrid ganja as it fetches a higher profit margin, sources in the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Customs Preventive Commissionerate (CCP) told TNIE.
Customs Preventive Commissionerate sources said since the customs duty was slashed, in the last eight months, the seizure of gold was reduced by one-fifth.
“The seizures made during August 2023 to March 2024 were five times more than seizures made in the corresponding period post the duty cut. The figure for the seized gold in the first eight months of the year was around 350kg, which dropped to about 70kg for the corresponding period after the duty was slashed,” the CCP source said.
A senior DRI official, who did not want to be identified, said the profit margin has dropped in the case of gold smuggling and after the duty cut, there has been an increase in cases of seizure of hybrid ganja.
Since July 2024, about 90kg hybrid ganja has been seized from Kochi airport alone. The most recent seizure in the state was made from Karipur airport where 12kg hydroponic weed was caught on May 1.
The DRI official said the dip in profit prompted many operators to ditch gold smuggling and switch to hybrid ganja. “The maximum profit from smuggling 1kg gold is less than Rs 8 lakh. If caught, they have to successfully land similar consignment seven to eight times to offset the losses. Hence, mid-level rackets have left the scene.
"Many of them prefer hydro ganja smuggling owing to the big margin. As much as 1kg hydro ganja can fetch Rs 1 crore in international market. They have a high demand in the Middle-East, and Kerala is a major transit hub en route to Gulf countries. A total of 1kg of the drug is costly than MDMA of the same quantity and hence the peddlers are interested as there is demand for the drugs among elite drug abusers,” the DRI source added.
The decline in gold smuggling has impacted the professional carriers and the agencies felt those desperately hooked to the shady profession might try a hand in smuggling hydro weed.
“The gold carrier earlier used to get `1 lakh as commission for smuggling 1kg of gold. His travel expenses were also taken care of by the racket on whose behalf he operates. Now, the commission is less than `50,000. Many of the carriers have dropped out. We are watching whether they are migrating to weed smuggling,” said the DRI source.
However, the Customs source said there is a slim chance for the gold carriers to dabble in drug smuggling as well due to the risk involved. “Most of the carriers are known to us. Drug trafficking is a more serious offence and they mostly won’t be willing to take risks as they know we are watching them. Also, gold smuggling might have come down, but it has not gone extinct,” said the customs official.