Chennai: DRI busts gold smuggling racket involving customs, X-ray staff

CHENNAI: In a dramatic gold smuggling case at Chennai Airport, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested six people, including two Sri Lankan passengers, two Customs Havildars and two airport X-ray department staff, for facilitating the smuggling of 2.6 kg of 24-carat gold worth around 4 crore.

Upon receiving information that Customs Havildars working at the airport were allegedly assisting passengers in bringing gold from foreign countries and taking it out of the airport, a special team of DRI officials in Chennai began monitoring passengers arriving on international flights, during the night and early morning hours.

The incident happened in the first week of September when a Sri Lankan Airlines flight arrived from Dubai via Sri Lanka. Two Sri Lankan passengers from the flight declared that they were not carrying any Customs duty goods and attempted to leave the airport through Green channel.

However, officials stopped them on suspicion and conducted a search of their belongings. As nothing suspicious was found in their luggage, they were handed over to two Customs Havildars, Karthik and Arun, for further examination. They had instructed the Havildars to take the duo to the airport’s X-ray department for a complete examination.

The Havildars took them to the X-ray department but, instead of subjecting them to a fresh X-ray exam, the Havildars returned with two previously prepared X-ray result copies indicating that no suspicious material had been detected inside the duo’s bodies. They presented the reports to the Customs officials and claimed that the passengers were not carrying smuggled gold.

The DRI special team, which had been monitoring all this from a distance, immediately intervened. They took the duo and the Havildars to the X-ray examination room, and conducted fresh X-ray examinations of the passengers. The X-ray reports revealed that gold bars had been concealed inside the rectums of both passengers.

Following that, the DRI officials arrested the two passengers, two Havildars and two employees of the airport’s X-ray department. They also recovered and seized the gold bars concealed inside the bodies of the two passengers. A total of 2.6 kg of gold valued at around Rs 4 crore (international market value) was recovered.

Following the seizure, officials took the accused to the DRI office in Chennai, where they underwent several hours of interrogation. The suspects were produced before the Alandur court and remanded in judicial custody at Puzhal Central Prison.

The DRI are investigating to find the others who are involved in the gold smuggling operation, and also find out how long the suspects had been carrying out the smuggling activities.