Investigations carried out by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) into the recent cases of gold smuggling have revealed that a Sangli-based gang is instrumental in the smuggling of precious metals in India and most of the smuggling instances were witnessed from Islampur in Bangladesh border. The agency has shared this information with the central intelligence agencies in a recent meeting. The details will be further shared with the border security agencies to thwart such smuggling activities in future, sources said.
According to the sources, DRI mentioned in the meeting that the agency had caught about 32kg of gold from places like Varanasi, Nagpur and Mumbai in a single operation. The members involved were people from Sangli in Maharashtra and were fluent in Marathi, Malayalam, and Bengali.
Syndicate used to smuggle gold into India via Bangladesh borders: DRI
“Their network and logistics helped them to transport anything anywhere and as per our information, most of the cases of smuggling of gold were coming from Islampur on the Bangladesh border. In October last year, in an operation at Varanasi, Nagpur and Mumbai we had busted a gold smuggling racket and had seized smuggled gold, weighing around 32kg valued at around ₹19 crore,” said a DRI official.
It has been learnt that the syndicate used to smuggle gold into India via the borders of Bangladesh and further diverted the same to Mumbai, Nagpur, Varanasi etc. The DRI had arrested 11 people – five people in Mumbai, two in Varanasi and four in Nagpur. “The arrested persons cover offenders at all rungs of the gold smuggling syndicate viz carriers/passengers, handlers, and final recipients of the smuggled gold,” the official said.
In a continued investigation of the said case, the DRI from Mumbai, Goa and Varanasi teams led to the recovery of a total of 13.7kg smuggled gold valued at ₹8.5 crore and five more persons were arrested, out of which three people were arrested in Mumbai and 2 in Varanasi. “This operation revealed information regarding a handler based out of a village in Sangli district,” said the official.
