NEW DELHI, FEB 22, 2014: AS observed and reported by TIOL, smuggled gold has been raining on virtually all airports, including remotely-located ones which have barely one or two international flights a day, the Delhi Zonal Unit of DRI yesterday seized a consignment of 1.152 kg of smuggled gold. But this sort of seizure has no longer any news value. What is of significance and may amount to an alert for the Customs at other airports across the country is the growing involvement of personnel of various agencies providing some sort of services at airports.

Take the yesterday's case - the DRI sleuths nabbed one J Gupta who was working as Sr Customer Service Associate of M/s Global Airport, a contract firm of M/s GMR at IGI Airport. Mr Gupta was allegedly caught red handed after he crossed the Customs Area carrying the gold consignment. As per the DRI Press Statement, the gold was smuggled by one Mr. S Pal, who, after arrival by Thai Airways flight from Bangkok handed over the gold to Mr. Gupta inside the bathroom in the Immigration hall. The gold was to be delivered to one Mr. Rakesh Verma, who was waiting outside the IGI airport for taking the delivery of gold. Mr Verma is a former employee of a forwarding firm at Mahipalpur. All the three persons have been arrested under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 and the case is under further investigations by DRI.

Such a modus operandi has brought to light the increasing nexus between the organized syndicates of gold smuggling and employees of various organisations working at airports. Such persons working at the airports are lured by the syndicate, as they are allowed free access to the airport and their movement inside the airport area is not routinely checked by Customs.

In another case of this type, on November, 2013, DRI had arrested one employee of COMBATTA Aviation, a firm employed at the IGI airport as utility hand (loader) when he was taking delivery of Iridium from an international passenger inside the bathroom in the IGI airport.

This modus operandi was also detected in a recent case booked at Jaipur International Airport against an employee of M/s Wipro Pvt. Limited working on contract with National Informatics Centre (NIC) engaged to maintain the computer systems of Immigration authorities. The said employee was caught when he had taken delivery of gold and was taking the same out of the airport for delivery.

DRI has also come across other ingenious methods of gold smuggling, in recent cases detected. It has come out that the smugglers were fully aware of the flying schedules of aircrafts, which after completion of International run convert to domestic flights. Two such cases have been booked recently involving total of 19 kg of gold at IGI airport in which the gold was concealed beneath the seat cushion in the aircraft during the international run. When the craft converted into domestic run, the gold was taken out by another member of same syndicate who boarded the plane as a domestic passenger and got allotted the same seat number.