DRI seeks info on Air India staff after busting gold rackets.

CHENNAI: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has asked Air India for detailed information on certain employees in the Gulf sector after investigations linked the carrier's staff to two recent cases of gold smuggling into the country.

These employees include aircraft cabin crew members, flight engineers and ground handlers who were involved in the two flights on which DRI made two large seizures.

In the first, on October 7, investigators found a huge stash of gold biscuits weighing 32 kg and worth close to Rs 9.5 crore hidden in a toilet abutting the cockpit, when an Air India flight from Dubai touched down in Chennai. In another bust three days later, DRI officials arrested an Air India Express flight attendant at Calicut airport on Sunday and seized gold bars worth Rs 1.84 crore from her.

A senior official at Air India office in Mumbai confirmed that they had recently received the letter from the DRI, which gave the carrier five weeks to submit information on employees involved in any way in the two flights.

"The letter points to the possible involvement of insiders [staff] in gold smuggling," the official said. "We have already suspended the flight attendant who was caught with gold bars at the Calicut airport on Sunday."

He said Air India is also conducting an internal inquiry into the cases.

Air India cabin crew and ground staff have been involved in cases of smuggling before. Last month, for example, two Air India crew members were caught at Delhi airport while attempting to smuggle 52 kg of sandalwood from Delhi to Hong Kong.

But officials are more worried that a reported 10-fold rise in smuggling over the past year could put paid to the government's efforts to limit the legal import of gold to less than 845 tonnes this year. According to the World Gold Council, India had declared imports of 616.5 tonnes till the end of October.

The government's efforts to curb gold imports by hiking import duty four times, from 6% to 15%, between January and September this year have had the unintended effect of triggering a spike in smuggling of the precious metal.

Investigators suspect that gold cartels based in the Gulf use airline staff to smuggle gold to India in large consignments. Investigators said employees of all airlines who work in overseas services could potentially be targets of cartels abroad that look to use them as carriers.

Airline employees are usually under the radar and know the safest ways to offload contraband, a senior airline official said. "Crew and ground handlers bring smuggled items through the domestic bays because there are fewer security checks there," he said.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com