Mumbai: Days after the arrest of a 38-year-old receiver in a gold smuggling syndicate involving foreign nationals, officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI, Mumbai) said that the probe has indicated a deep-rooted conspiracy to defraud the government.
Agency sources claimed that the smuggled gold was sold to other members of the syndicate, with the chain including hawala operators being longer than imagined.
On March 6, the DRI officials had arrested UAE national Salem Abdulla Salem Khalfan Alshamsi and Omani national Al Shamsi Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah in Mumbai for allegedly attempting to smuggle gold bars into India. The agency sleuths had recovered gold weighing 21.288kg valued at nearly Rs 19 crore from them. Officials said there was a duty evasion of Rs 7.28 crore in this case.
The accused foreign nationals in their voluntary statements had revealed that they always delivered the smuggled gold to one AS Shaikh outside the airport. Arrested on April 23, Shaikh told the agency that he met accused foreign nationals through a common friend in Dubai and agreed to their offer for monetary returns. He said he collected gold two to three times in the past at a predecided location in the parking area of the airport and delivered it to another member of the syndicate.
An official said the probe is on to unravel the money trail and the trail of the sale-purchase of the illegal gold. “The present case involves continued acts of smuggling in an organised manner by the syndicate involving foreign nationals. The probe has so far revealed that the syndicate members used the hawala channel to transfer funds from India to Dubai,” the official said.
