CHENNAI: If one or two passengers arriving on a packed flight from an international destination suddenly fell sick at the arrival area of the airport, it might be an indication of an organised gold-smuggling racket, Customs officials at Chennai international airport have been warned.
A recent advisory sent by the Customs department’s New Delhi headquarters has warned of a new modus operandi by gold smugglers, particularly in airports such as Chennai, Tiruchy, Cochin, and Thiruvananthapuram, sources said.
As per this new methodology, multiple ‘carriers’ smuggling small quantities of gold would be travelling in the same aircraft. When they land at the airport, one or a few of them would feign a sudden illness or wantonly get into an argument with authorities to create distraction. This would allow the large group to escape detection by Customs staff and facilitate their escape from the airport, the advisory has warned.
Sources said that this was a tactical move by organised gold -smuggling syndicates to take advantage of the difficulty faced by agencies like Customs in passenger facilitation and enforcement activities. It would be a difficult task for the handful of Customs staff to detect gold concealment when a large number of passengers land from a single aircraft, especially from popular locations like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Sources said that a few such incidents have been recorded in the last one year in Lucknow, Tiruchy, Thiruvananthapuram, and Chennai. In the Chennai incident in September 2023, 113 passengers from a Dubai flight had brought in around 13 kg of gold, 500 mobile phones, 42 kg of saffron and 6 lakh foreign cigarettes, whichwere seized.
Explaining the logic of this modus operandi, sources said that even if a few of them get caught, the total bounty smuggled out by the others would be significantly large.
The advisory has warned Customs authorities at various airports including Chennai to take proactive measures to use data analytics and identify frequent flyers to prevent such organised smuggling attempts.
Customs sources also said that another trend observed in recent cases is to send gold through gullible genuine travellers to foreign destinations by offering them a commission. The consignment would then be collected outside the airport, where the commission would also be paid. The use of genuine passengers is to hoodwink Customs data analytics which filters out frequent flyers and identifies potential gold carriers.