In the past 48 hours, Customs enforcers seized more than 2 kg of contraband gold from suspected couriers who landed at the international airport here.
Investigators said the unusually high number of seizures this month indicated a steep increase in gold smuggling prior to the Diwali and Christmas-New Year shopping season. The domestic demand for gold ornaments traditionally peaked during the season.
The resurgence in gold smuggling has been matched by a corresponding decline in legal gold imports. In Thiruvananthapuram airport alone, gold imports have dipped from 100 kg to mere 17 kg in the past one year. The trend was the same in Nedumbassery and Kozhikode.
Smuggling gold into the country from the Gulf in small quantities and through air routes has turned highly lucrative and well-organised ever since the Central government hiked its import duty in March, 2013.
The profits involved in smuggling gold were estimated at Rs.3 lakh a kg and several hitherto unknown networks and independent players, including women-only groups and sympathisers of radical outfits, have entered the fray.
The main mode of smuggling gold was body concealment. The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) here said it relied mainly on “predictive profiling” of passengers and their limited overseas intelligence sources to staunch the inflow of contraband gold.
Investigators pored routinely over air-passenger manifestos, which they could electronically access hours before the flight landed, to “flag” potential carriers amongst travellers. The “travel history” of the suspects, as evident in their respective passports, was often a giveaway.
‘High risk’ passengersThey also observed “high risk” passengers for behavioural clues, chiefly signs of anxiety or un-natural gait, which often indicated concealment of contraband.
Investigators said their methods were not fool proof, especially in crowded airport environments, and the smuggling attempts they had thwarted could just be a fraction of the actual scale.
They said the end beneficiaries of gold smuggling were law breakers in the jewellery business and also Gulf-based hawala networks which exploited the tax difference to compensate their agents in the country.
