Pune: Smuggling of gold into the country through the city airport continues to be a concern with 2018 witnessing more recovery of such yellow metal than the two preceding years.
Customes officials seized 18kg of gold and arrested four persons for trying to bring in the yellow metal in 2018. In 2017, they had recovered 17.6kg of gold and arrested four persons. The year before, 12.89kg of gold was recovered at the airport here.
Earlier this month, 4kg of gold was recovered from a SpiceJet flight reaching Pune from Dubai. “Continuous programmes aimed at sensitizing the airlines’ staffers are on and we are also keeping a strict eye on the situation,” a customs official said.
Another official said the way the smugglers are using various aircraft components to hide gold was surprising. “We are sure that the smugglers and the carriers go through some training for such activities. But it is difficult to ascertain how and where the training happens. In the smuggling attempt earlier this month, the smugglers had opened the cabinet covering the base of the wash basin of a washroom on the aircraft and we recovered 4kg gold from there,” the official said.
“There was another instance of the smugglers opening the oxygen panel of a toilets and hiding gold there. All this cannot be done by someone who doesn’t know how to open such components,” the official said.
31/01/19 Joy Sengupta/Times of India
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Customes officials seized 18kg of gold and arrested four persons for trying to bring in the yellow metal in 2018. In 2017, they had recovered 17.6kg of gold and arrested four persons. The year before, 12.89kg of gold was recovered at the airport here.
Earlier this month, 4kg of gold was recovered from a SpiceJet flight reaching Pune from Dubai. “Continuous programmes aimed at sensitizing the airlines’ staffers are on and we are also keeping a strict eye on the situation,” a customs official said.
Another official said the way the smugglers are using various aircraft components to hide gold was surprising. “We are sure that the smugglers and the carriers go through some training for such activities. But it is difficult to ascertain how and where the training happens. In the smuggling attempt earlier this month, the smugglers had opened the cabinet covering the base of the wash basin of a washroom on the aircraft and we recovered 4kg gold from there,” the official said.
“There was another instance of the smugglers opening the oxygen panel of a toilets and hiding gold there. All this cannot be done by someone who doesn’t know how to open such components,” the official said.
31/01/19 Joy Sengupta/Times of India
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