CHENNAI: A cabin crew member of an flight from Dubai was arrested on Sunday by Customs officials on charges of receiving gold from a passenger onboard to smuggle it outside the airport. Customs officials refused to reveal the names of the crew member and the passenger, who too was arrested.
The air intelligence unit of Customs intercepted the cabin crew member on the flight immediately after it landed from Dubai early on Sunday. He was found hiding the gold in paste form on his person. The tip-off came to Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
During interrogation, the arrested crew member said a passenger on the same flight had handed him the gold, which weighed 1.7 kg and was worth more than 1 crore. The passenger too was arrested.
“The modus operandi is that the passenger will hand over the gold to the crew member on the flight, and the latter is supposed to deliver it to a receiver outside the airport,” said a Customs official.
After the crackdown on airport ground staff in league with smuggling cartels, cabin crew are being lured to keep the business running, investigators said. Though the cabin crew member claimed this was his first attempt, investigators said only further investigation would reveal the truth.
Only last week, DRI busted smugglers playing catch with gold by throwing it over the glass partition between arrival and departure areas at the international terminal to hoodwink CISF personnel on duty.
As the difference in market value of gold in Dubai and India has shrunk from 6 lakh per kg earlier this year to 3.5 lakh now, the enforcement agencies are puzzled by the continued attempts at smuggling. “It cannot be just for the value of gold. The role of hawala operators is suspected,” said an official.
Gold smuggling, which came down in Aug and Sept due to the crackdown on the Sri Lankan transit route, has now regained momentum in new forms, officials said.
