2 airport workers held for helping passengers smuggle gold

Around 11.30 pm on Thursday, as the sleuths from the Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs were keeping an eye on the passengers who had landed from Malaysia, they noticed contract worker Muneer (28) picking up the hand baggage belonging to Mohammed Akkil (36) who had deboarded. They found Muneer walking to the exit and waiting for Akkil. A little later, Akkil came to the exit through the green channel. As he picked the baggage from Muneer, officials surrounded them.

When they checked the bag, they found that it contained gold weighing about 480 grams, worth Rs 15 lakh. The officials seized the gold and arrested both of them for further inquiry.

In the second case, the officials seized gold worth Rs 62 lakh from a private contractor labour at Chennai airport. The man was identified as Mohammed Azam (27) from Chennai, a customer agent at AIATSL, the firm providing customer services for Air India. The Air Intelligence Unit got a tip off that gold was being smuggled from Riyadh through Saudi Arabian airlines flight SV778. Following this, the officers kept a close eye on the movement of the airport staff and other services providers. After the passengers disembarked from the flight, they were closely monitored by the AIU. The officials noticed Mohammed Azam, walking in a suspicion manner, going inside the aircraft to complete the arrival formality.

The officers immediately intercepted and questioned Azam, who remained nervous and evasive. When they checked him, the sleuths found three gold bars hidden inside a mobile flip cover inside his pocket. On sustained questioning, Azam revealed that he received the mobile cover from a passenger who arrived on the Saudi Arabian and was planning to return it to him at the exit. But the passenger had escaped by the time the officers unravelled the plan.

The gold weighing about 1.9 kg, worth Rs 62 lakh, was seized and Azam was arrested. The officers are trying to identify the passenger who got escaped with the help of CCTV footage.

The police on Thursday arrested a contract labour at the airport cargo and two others, who stole smartphones by breaking the containers in the cargo. The arrested persons were identified as Murugan (28) from Alandur working as a load man in cargo, and Mahendran (26) and Devendran (31) from Saidapet.

After the airport police got information that mobile phones were being stolen repeatedly, they found that Murugan was stealing smartphones and selling them at a low price. When police inquired, Murugan admitted to breaking the containers and looting the phones. Police said that Murugan used to sell those phones to Mahendran and Devendran.

Based on the information given by Murugan, police arrested both of them and seized six high-end smartphones from them. Police said that the group had looted 41 phones totally in which they had sold 35 phones.