MUMBAI: the Mumbai airport customs busted an all-women gang and for the first time managed to nab the carrier, receiver and an airport insider who was helping smuggling out gold bars worth Rs 24 lakh, Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) make assignment.
The team working on specific information was monitoring the activity of Pooja Sonwalkar, a staffer of ground handling firm Celebi Nas for the last few weeks. At 4.50 am on Wednesday, the officials noticed Rubina Salim, a passenger arriving from Kuwait via Kuwait Airways flight KU 301, hand over a package to Sonwalkar, who was on ground handling duty. The gold was handed over to Salim by an unidentified person in Kuwait.”An examination of the package after questioning revealed 9 gold bars of 10 tolas each weighing a little over 1 kg in weight,” a customs official said. Salim, a housewife living in Veraval in Gujarat, gave away details of her crime immediately on being intercepted.
While Salim has been caught for the first time she admitted to having worked as a carrier and smuggled gold three times earlier this year. Sonwalkar admitted having cleared 20 different consignments of at least 17-18 kg of gold worth Rs 4.2 crore approximately from various carriers. Sonwalkar claimed that her role in smuggling gold was limited only to the last few months. After receiving the parcel, Sonwalkar would have handed it over to Sahariya, who would then pass it on further based on instructions received. “We managed to apprehend Sahariya from outside the airport,” the official said.
“Usually it is only the carriers who are caught and take the fall. This has been a successful operation in terms of nabbing all those involved,” AIU chief Kiran Kumar Karlapu said.
Carriers are easily lured with money. They are paid as high as 10% of the value of the gold they carry. “Although desperate cases settle for a smaller margin. Their tickets along with their stay are sponsored. These carriers seldom know the identity of the facilitator,the actual sender and the final receiver,” officials said.
