Mani D'mello

 

India's insatiable appetite for the precious metal has opened up several routes for smugglers from Dubai to Nepal to Bangladesh, with gold smuggling doubling since November last. Gold smuggling is turning into a lucrative business in the country since the last six months. Smuggling syndicates operating out of north Kerala districts are found to be using Mumbai as a transit point to smuggle in the precious yellow metal from the Middle East and Far East- Singapore and Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka. 

 

In large number of reported cases, Customs authorities have traced that new gold smuggling syndicates operating out of mainly north Kerala prefer female carriers over male carriers to smuggle in gold as they raise less suspicion in the minds of Customs officials. 

 

Even though the import duty on gold was hiked by 10 per cent in August last, the flow of gold imports has increased by around 500 percent in the last five months. Gold smuggling is being preferred to narcotics trafficking since the market is huge and the consignments are easily and quickly disposed off once it lands outside the airports. In fact gold is being smuggled into the country from even across the Indo-Bangla and Indo-Nepal brooder via road by smuggling syndicates.

Since vigilance has been beefed up in Kerala aiports, Mumbai airport is strongly suspected to be used by carriers to smuggle in the yellow market which is then carted to Kerala through the rail route. 

 

In the last one year in the city, there were nine reported cases of gold smuggling and collectively around Rs 12 crore worth of this contraband was seized. In fact in the last four months there were eight cases detected by the Customs authorities in Mumbai

In a recent case, Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Customs seized undeclared gold worth Rs. 97 lakh from two Indian passengers in separate cases at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, around weeks back.

One Sayed Mohammed Abbas, who arrived in Mumbai from Bangkok, was intercepted by AIU and upon searching him in person and his luggage, two gold bars were found in his pant pocket. Gold, collectively valued at Rs. 50.86 lakh, was seized from him. 

 

Later in another case a couple of hours later, Fahad Chougle, who landed into Mumbai from Bangkok with his three family members, was intercepted and on being subjected to check, he was found to be in possession of four gold chains and six bracelets collectively valued at Rs. 46.28 lakh.

Earlier, on December 28, last, when Mirza Yasir Hussain alighted from a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok, he looked nervous. He frequently tried to cover his copper-coated belt buckle under his shirt. The vigilant Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officials of airport customs took him aside. On scratching the buckle, they found its copper colour peeling off and the yellow shine of the gold was exposed. On investigating, it was found that his bag handle which was silver-coated also had gold underneath it, officials said.  

 

Within a few hours, another passenger, who landed from Dubai, was apprehended with five gold bars valued at over Rs15 lakh. He concealed them in his rectum.

 

 Customs smugglers using passengers as legal carriers of gold since December last, ever since the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) busted a few gangs, caught bringing in gold using mainly young women. Indians who have stayed abroad for at least six months are allowed to legally bring in up to 1 kg of gold, with import duty paid in foreign currency. Indians travelling abroad can get in gold jewellery worth up to Rs 50,000 in case of men, and Rs 1 lakh in case of women, duty-free.

 

So much so, that the government has now asked jewelers to furnish details of purchases of gold bars or ornaments worth more than Rs 500,000. With gold running up the second highest import bill after crude oil, India has been making attempts to curb the entry of the yellow metal into India through legal channels. One of the steps adopted was increase of import duty by 10per cent. The import of gold was also tied to jewellery exports.

 

“This led to a crisis and jewelers in the country became dependent on smuggled or recycled gold. The high customs duty also pushed up the price of gold in India turning smuggling into a lucrative business. The Wold Gold Council estimates that 150-200 tonnes of gold may have been smuggled into India in 2013. This is in addition to the official demand for 900 tonnes. The country's official import of gold has fallen significantly in the last year, pushing up demand for the smuggled stuff,” said a senior Customs official in Mumbai.

 

It is also learnt that Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has sent out instructions to airlines to take measures to ensure that its ground staff is not involved in abetting in smuggling out the yellow metal from the airport for syndicates.

 

It is is pertinent to note that India is the largest importer of gold, which is mainly used to meet demand of the jewellery industry. Imports stood at about 830 tonnes in 2012-13.