MUMBAI: In the 19th case of an insider being involved in gold smuggling at the Mumbai airport, a janitor at the airport was caught smuggling gold left by a passenger in a washroom here the other day.
Mumbai Customs officials seized 18 bars of gold worth Rs 47.81 lakh from the dustbins at the first and last toilet cubicles of the washroom near the immigration arrival hall.
According to officials, the gold was carried by Irfan Shaikh, who had travelled from Dubai to Mumbai via Kuwait on a Kuwait Airlines flight. The gold bars were in two packs of 9 bars held together by black adhesive tape.
“The gold was handed over to janitor Vick Prajapati, who was supposed to bring the gold out of the airport to the passenger in return for Rs 30,000. However, a miscommunication between the passenger and the janitor led to Prajapati keeping one packet concealed in the washroom for himself and informing the Customs about the other packet. Officials noticed a scuffle between the two later when Shaikh confronted Prajapati about the gold, leading to the arrest of both,” said a Customs officer.
This year has seen a surge in the number of insiders being involved in gold smuggling.
In July, officers of Air Intelligence Unit intercepted passenger Sunil Jagwani, while he was handing over gold to Deepak Golani, who was in charge of security for all Etihad flights operating out of Mumbai. According to officials, Jagwani carried 1348 gms of foreign marked gold bars and cut biscuits valued at Rs 33.08 lakhs concealed inside a cigarette packet on the Etihad 212 fight from Abu Dhabi.
Golani was the third senior-most official of Etihad India, drawing a salary of Rs 1.5 lakhs per month.
In April, two employees of Sky Gourmet Flight kitchen were caught as they were attempting a series of gold retrievals from flights. Both the accused have admitted that they smuggled gold at least 30 times in the past, said Customs officials.
In February, a Jet Airways attendant on a Dubai-Mumbai flight was caught trying to smuggle gold and diamonds worth Rs 1.06 crore at the Mumbai airport. While in February, Customs officials caught a passenger service assistant of Celebi Nas for acting as a carrier for gold worth Rs 1.5 crore.
