Gold smuggling at city airport sees spurt after 3-month lull

Mumbai airport is witnessing a spurt in gold smuggling cases after a lull of three months due to an increase in demand for the yellow metal ahead of the festive season.

Two days ago, customs officials had detected as many as seven gold smuggling attempts in a single day involving around 6 kg of gold. On Wednesday evening, the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Customs department arrested a woman for smuggling around 4kg of gold.

AIU officials claim they have recorded a drop of almost 76 per cent in gold smuggling in 2016 at Mumbai airport, while other airports in the city saw a drop of almost 90 per cent. “But, thanks to the festive season, gold smugglers are in the limelight at the city airport,” said a senior AIU official.

This year, officials saw only 42 cases of gold smuggling and recovered 33 kg of gold, which is worth almost Rs 8.5 crore. In 2014, however, 1,008 kg of gold was seized at the Mumbai airport, while in 2015 officials seized 408 kg of gold at Mumbai airport. Officials believe that the Dussehra and Diwali season will bring a boom in gold smuggling, as demand will increase.

On August 29, 6kg of gold was recovered from seven different cases. Similarly, on Wednesday evening AIU officials intercepted one Sakineh Shirazi, who was holding an Iranian passport. According to sources she was travelling from Dubai to Mumbai by an Emirates flight and she had concealed jewellery worth Rs 84,49,008 in her clothes.