NEW DELHI: The CBEC’s vigilance wing has been asked to probe the disappearance of gold worth about Rs 9 lakh from Customs vault at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has sought a report from the IGIA Customs explaining the circumstances in which gold seized from smugglers had disappeared, official sources said today.
An internal inquiry has been ordered and the department’s Vigilance wing has also been asked to look into the matter, they said.
An FIR was registered recently by Delhi Police on the complaint of customs officials who said two gold chains and bangles, together weighing 298 gms, valued at about Rs 8.83 lakh, were replaced with yellow-coloured non-precious metal.
The incident came to light when packets containing 1.27 kg gold, including the stolen gold chains and bangles, duly sealed at the instance of a court, were opened by the customs officials before a departmental committee as part of inventorisation proceedings.
“It appears that the contents i.e. two gold chains of primary gold total weighing 220 gms and four bangles of primary gold total weighing 78 gms were replaced with one rectangular slab (cuboid) of yellow metal (non-precious metal), which was not made of gold,” reads the FIR.
These items were kept in a secure vault which contains seized yellow metal and other precious goods worth crores of rupees.
The FIR under Section 409 for criminal breach of trust by public servant and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC was registered against unknown persons on June 15 at the IGIA police station.
Police prima facie suspect it to be an insider’s job.
It is not for the first time that gold has gone missing from the Customs vault.
Over 23 kg of gold worth more than Rs six crore had earlier gone missing from the Customs warehouse, officials have said in response to an RTI query filed by PTI.
