CHENNAI: Officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Chennai, are likely to shift to Chennai the 56 accused in the gold smuggling case on Tuesday night.
The customs officials of Vizag have been preparing to take up more measures to control gold smuggling activities which have increased after the airport got international connectivity.
Explaining the overall scenario, the DRI officials said that 56 accused were identified from three flights i.e. Air Asia 83 and Malindo 251 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Silk Air MI442 from Singapore on the night of June 21. They said the first flight Air-Asia arrived at 9.10 pm, second Silk Air at 10.05 pm and Malindo at 11 pm. The officials said that the suspected passengers were enquired by the DRI and their passports were scrutinised. The passengers used to depart from Chennai airport to Malaysia/Singapore and arrive at various international airports with smuggled goods.
The goods were found in various shapes resembling parts of electronic goods such as magnets in amplifiers, stand of speakers, central pulley of washing machine, rods of trolley and magnets in transformer etc.
Sources in the Customs department said that half of the accused were women and all of them were mostly from middle class families.
The DRI officials after reliable information, nabbed the accused by scrutinising their passports, visas and their travel history. Sources said that the officials also picked up the accused who were found with more electronic goods, especially those that were found to be selling at a higher price in Singapore than in India, and later found them smuggling gold.
The interrogation of the arrested continued throughout the night and investigation is still on to determine if any accused has slipped through.
