Hyderabad Police today claimed to have busted a racket of smuggling of gold from Dubai with the arrest of four persons from Old City here and seized over four kilogrammes of gold biscuits worth Rs one crore from them.
Police also seized Rs 16 lakh in Indian currency, 2,500 Riyals and 910 UAE Dhirams from their possession.
On reliable information, the Commissioner's Task Force, South Zone team intercepted four persons -- Zafar Ahmed, Syed Wajeed, Arif Ali Shaik and Mohd Taheruddin from a location in Old City and seized the gold and foreign currency, Hyderabad Police Commissioner M Mahendar Reddy told reporters.
Another gang member Mohd Feroz Khan, who resides at Dubai, is absconding.
"The racket involves smuggling of gold from Dubai to Hyderabad through the carriers (air passengers) by International flights. One of the members Feroz Khan is stationed in Dubai and he keeps purchasing the gold locally (in Dubai) and through the regular air passengers who come to Hyderabad from Dubai, the gold was sent," Reddy said while explaining the modus operandi adopted by the gang members.
"Once the passengers reach Hyderabad, the gang members used to collect the gold from them and later used to dispose the gold biscuits to gold jewellery shops here or to individual customers on higher price and were earning money illegally," the Police Commissioner said, adding that they used to make a profit of Rs five to Rs six lakh for each kg of gold which was sold in market here.
As per preliminary information the gang members were running the racket for the past three months, he said.
"...It is a well lubricated network. They transfer the money from here back to Dubai through hawala channel to again buy gold in Dubai," Reddy pointed out adding "we will hand over the entire gold and currency seized to one of the central agencies either ED or DRI or Customs department for taking necessary action as per the rule."
Asked about the involvement of any person at the airport in the racket, the Hyderabad Police chief said, "We need to further investigate to find out how they have been able to get to the airport and on how they were able to get the gold outside the airport. How the network was operating...How the passengers were able to exit the airport without being caught... These aspects need to be investigated further.
