The officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Tuesday arrested a 47-year-old Mulund resident for allegedly being involved in activities of melting/extracting smuggled gold. The agency has seized gold, silver and cash totally worth Rs 19 crore from the premises of the accused person.
According to the DRI sources, specific intelligence was received, that activities of melting/extracting smuggled gold are being carried out by one A.V. Jadhav at Kalbadevi. Acting on the said intelligence, a team of DRI officers conducted the search ar three premises on Monday.
During the searches it was found that all the three places were allegedly being used by Jadhav for activities of melting/conversion of smuggled gold and silver. From the said three premises, a total of approximately 23.928 kilograms of unaccounted gold and 37.10 kilograms of silver were recovered. Additionally, an amount of Rs 5.40 lakhs in cash was recovered, which appeared to be the proceeds from the sale of the smuggled goods, agency sources said.
"Jadhav could not produced any legal supporting documents for the gold, which proves that the gold were smuggled into India without following the procedures prescribed under Customs Act. Approximately Rs. 19.12 crores of value of unaccounted gold, silver and cash were seized from the premises of Jadhav. Additionally, in his statement on Tuesday, Jadhav again failed to provide any valid or sufficient documentation regarding the gold and silver found during the search. He stated that he did not maintain any formal records or legal documentation related to these metals. The DRI officers also found that the premises were being used for melting and conversion in gold bars, which further strengthens the suspicion of illegal gold processing and smuggling," said a DRI official.
Advocate Ravi Hirani with Advocate Swarali Kelkar appeared for Jadhav before the court. "My client is doing genuine business of gold melting into jewellery as per orders of his customers, he will produce the documents and bills of gold. He has been wrongly charged for duty evasion as gold has been recovered from his shop," said Advocate Hirani.
