Smuggler of iridium, designer watches gets one year in jail

Mumbai: Parminder Singh, who smuggled 20 diamond-studded Franck Muller Geneve watches and six other less expensive watches in an Air India plane toilet has been sent to jail for a year.
He was detained under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (Cofeposa) Act, meant to put habitual smugglers behind bars. A committee comprising officials from many government departments cleared a proposal to charge him under Cofeposa Act in September as Parminder has past cases of smuggling registered against him.
In January, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials found the watches worth nearly Rs 3 crore in an Abu Dhabi-Mumbai Airbus. Each Franck Muller Geneve watch costs Rs 10-15 lakh. The watches and some chemical packets were in a bag, hidden in a cavity in the aircraft's wall. The DRI acted on source information and was not aware about Parminder's involvement.
DRI suspected Parminder because of his past smuggling cases. The passenger manifest on days before the watch seizure showed Singh travelled from Bangkok to Delhi by an AI aircraft. Singh had travelled by another airline from Hong Kong to Bangkok .
31/10/11 C Unnikrishnan/Times of India

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Categories: Air India Oct 2011