| Date: |
15-12-2015 |
| Subject: |
Gold smuggling changes face over the decades |
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AHMEDABAD: Gold smuggling had attracted Bollywood's imagination the most. Filmmakers glamorised the activity, which was shown as a career preference of villains. Even those underworld dons, whose biopics projected various imaginative manners of gold smuggling, would rather enjoy the tricks --- tearing a currency note somewhere in the Middle East and then matching two torn halves on Indian shore etc.
The 1991 liberalization of market and abolition of Gold Control Act put an end in 1992 to the rampant gold smuggling seen as the mainstay of the underworld. Since then, the glamour in gold smuggling has remained confined to Bollywood's period dramas.
However, gold smuggling activity made a comeback in 2013 with the central government imposing 10% duty on gold imports. Interestingly, the new form of gold smuggling, as reported in last two years, is through air route. It has failed to fire imaginations as much as the smuggling by sea did.
In a bid to escape scrutiny of Customs and DRI officials gold smugglers regularly come up with unique modus operandi. Sometimes they hid gold bars in rectum and other body parts to escape scanners. But of recent, smugglers have grown more technical in their methods.
A Kerala-based man, Sajan, was held with 3kg gold covered with mercury inside a high-pressure car washer. A few more cases were detected in which mercury was used to conceal gold. Abdul Muthalib from Kerala was caught in city airport while bringing in gold by converting it into foil woven inside suitcases.
Smugglers now hide gold in zinc die cast scrap or bring it in under the guise of natural ore gold concentrate, which could be passed off as soil.
Customs officials said that more than 80% of gold carriers caught at airport are from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The rise in smuggling cases is steep. From two cases in 2012, they rose to 46 in 2014. This year, till December, 42 incidents have been recorded, and 48.32 kg of gold, worth Rs 12.61 crore has been seized at the airport by customs and DRI with 44 smugglers/carriers being detained.
Besides gold, cigarettes are turning out to be another favourite of smugglers. Many passengers are being penalized for carrying extra cigarettes and consignments carrying foreign cigarettes are caught at ports with their auctions fetching crores of rupees.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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