Four Afghans and a senior official of a firm managing cargo operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here, are among eight persons who have been arrested for smuggling gold worth Rs 3.5 crore.
With their arrest, the officials of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) today claimed to have busted a syndicate of gold smugglers involving an international airline crew and ground handling staff at the airport.
Acting on specific intelligence that foreign-origin gold was being smuggled into the country by a crew member of Afghanistan-based Kam Air flight arriving from Kabul, the DRI officials laid a trap on Monday and intercepted four gold bars weighing over 13 kgs valued at about Rs 3.5 crore, they said.
"A flight engineer of Kam Air, two airport staff and five conspirators have been arrested," said R K Digvijay, Joint Director, DRI Delhi zonal unit.
The modus operandi was that the crew member of Kam Air would hand over the gold bars to the airport staff inside the aircraft. The airport staff would then conceal the gold bars in their shoes and take them out of the airport from the staff gate on the tarmac side, he said.
"Thereafter, they would deliver the gold bars near the airport to the other members of the syndicate for disposal in the local market," Digvijay said.
The seizure by DRI has neutralised all members of the syndicate that were engaged in the smuggling of gold for the last year or so, he claimed.
Those arrested include a senior staff of one of the firms involved in managing cargo operations at the airport, another senior DRI official said.
The DRI has informed Afghanistan Embassy here of the arrest of its four nationals in the case.
"The arrests expose a security lacuna. The syndicate might have smuggled in so many banned things. Further investigation into the case is going on," the official said.
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In another incident, two persons have been arrested by the custom officials at the airport here for gold smuggling.
The accused were intercepted when they were passing through the transit area to board a flight to Mumbai.
"They had concealed 2.690 kg gold in their rectum," said Sanjay Mangal, Commissioner of the customs, IGI airport.
The value of the seized gold is assessed to be about Rs 77 lakh, he said.
