Drop reported in gold smuggling

This year gold smuggling at the Mumbai airport has drastically dropped, with officials attributing the dip to government policies and low gold prices. While in the last calendar year, a total of 1,008 kg of gold was seized at the Mumbai airport, this year officials have seized only 392 kg of gold till November.

In the financial year 2014-15, as much as 890 kg of gold were recovered, while this year from April 2015 onwards, only 280 kg of gold have been recovered.

According to market experts, the drastic drop in smuggling occurred due to low price of gold in the Indian market. Kumar Jain, vice-president of the Shree Mumbai Jewellers Association, said, “In the first week of August this year, gold prices dropped to 22,000 to 24,000 per 10 gm. Therefore there were fewer attempts to smuggle gold in as the prices were expected to go down further.”

A top official from the Custom’s Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) said, “Our officials travel in flights in plainclothes to keep a tab on gold smuggling, and this has helped us limit the number of such incidents. This year we prohibited the use of mobiles by airline staff at certain points and told them to go through custom checks which helped us nab as many as 20 insiders.”

While talking about the modus operandi of smugglers, an official said that this year many women had been caught hiding gold in their undergarments; children and elderly were also used as gold carriers by their relatives.

Gold had also been found concealed in the anus and things such as soap, chocolates, belts, watches, mobiles and dates, he said.

Thursday night, AIU officials seized a hollow cylindrical metal substance purported to be gold weighing 580 gm. The gold was recovered from Mohammed Afsar Kader, who was coming from Dubai by Air India Flight No. AI-984, which is a highly-sensitive flight.