Amid COVID, Smugglers Are Using Repatriation Flights To Smuggle Gold, 7 Cases Busted In 3 Days
And in the past three days alone seven of them have been caught at various airports in Kerala with gold worth lakhs. On Thursday, a woman passenger was apprehended at the Kochi Airport with nearly 250 grams of gold, worth around Rs 10 lakhs, which she was trying to sneak in, hiding inside her clothes.
The world as we know it has come to a standstill and we are only learning to live life in the new normal due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it appears like it is business as usual for the gold smugglers.
Not only that they haven't slowed down but have picked up. And in the past three days alone seven of them have been caught at various airports in Kerala with gold worth lakhs.
BCCL
On Thursday, a woman passenger was apprehended at the Kochi Airport with nearly 250 grams of gold, worth around Rs 10 lakhs, which she was trying to sneak in, hiding inside her clothes. The woman, a native of Thrissur had arrived in Kochi on a chartered flight of Gulf Air from Bahrain.
According to locals media reports, the woman is believed to be a part of the gold smuggling racket and had made frequent international flights. Since early this week there has been a spike in the number of gold smuggling attempts, and the authorities believe that the smugglers are using people who have lost their jobs as carriers on repatriation flights.
BCCL
The smuggling techniques have also evolved and they are resorting to hiding gold in date seeds, bra straps, belt buckles, shoe soles, sausages and even gold paste.
On Sunday, three people from the same flight that landed in Kannur Airport were apprenticed for smuggling gold. According to reports, since last week more than 5 kgs of gold have been seized at the four international airports in Kerala. 1.25 kg of gold was seized from a passenger from Sharjah who arrived on an Air Arabia flight. The gold was hidden in the passenger¡¯s underwear.
BCCL
More than 1.5 kg of gold was seized from three other passengers from Dubai who came in a Fly Dubai flight. Most of these smuggling attempts are happening on chartered flights as there is less scrutiny on them.
Gold smuggling, especially from the middle east has been a rampant practice in India and a lion share of this is to Kerala. However, this illegal operation had suffered a setback due to the lockdown which resulted in the cancellation of all flights.
BCCL
But now with the resumption of limited international flights, the authorities fear that there will be more such attempts in the coming days.
In 2019 in Kochi Airport alone 131 kg of gold worth Rs 48 crore were seized and foiled 369 smuggling attempts.
Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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