Mumbai: A record 149 flyers of 156 passengers on a flight from Oman to Chennai were held on Thursday night by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths for mass smuggling of contraband in the southern capital of Tamil Nadu.
A total of 13 kgs gold, over 2500 smartphones and saffron with a total value of ₹14 crore was seized from the 149 passengers attempting to smuggle the items evading high customs duties.
The strict vigil at Mumbai and Delhi airports had led the criminal syndicate to change routes from Middle East to south Indian airports of Chennai, Cochin and Hyderabad which has seen a rise of seizures and arrests in the last three months.
New trend
“A new trend has emerged of labour immigrants from gulf being used as miles to smuggle gold and other contraband from southern airports after the crackdown on the gold smuggling rackets at Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Delhi. Last three months have seen a phenomenal rise in gold seizures from Tamil Nadu airports and sea routes,” explained a senior customs and revenue official.
In its sustained effort to combat gold smuggling, DRI Chennai has so far seized around 163 kg of gold worth ₹97 crore in 29 cases, and 43 persons have been arrested since January 2023 onwards in different parts of Tamil Nadu.
Earlier in May DRI sleuths had intercepted two passengers and seized 23.34 kgs of gold of ₹14.43 crore at Chennai International airport.
In another case DRI team seized 20.5 kgs gold valued at ₹12 crore in July smuggled from Sri Lanka via sea route of Thangachimadam, northern coast of Ramnad on a fishing boat.
Another consignment of 5.17 kgs gold worth ₹3.17 crore was seized from an aircraft that had just landed from Sharjah at Coimbatore International airport and 6.275 kgs gold of ₹3.8 crore was seized from another flight at Chennai airport the same night.
