I and my black coat have over the years defended the good, the bad and the ugly. And, along the way realised, that people always find ingenious ways to make money. And some cases and individuals stand out. Among the earliest, was a charge sheet that pertained to smuggling of bulk textiles and gold into Goa, from Dubai, the haven of smugglers.
The Zuari bridge, in those distant days was a mere dream and the only way to cross it, was by ferry which would stop plying, at eleven pm. One could thereafter charter a ferry, for a fee.
The smugglers had realised that the operations were at most risk at the point of unloading. And here is how the difficulty was overcome as confessed by a Ribandar-based ring leader, to the Customs.
“It was realised that the most vulnerable time for us was at the point of unloading the goods from the dhow and loading it on to trucks as someone or the other tended to appear even at the most remote landing point. The best way was to unload the goods at sea. And thus, the ferry staff had to be roped in. The dhow would arrive past midnight. Two or three trucks would enter a chartered ferry which sailed midstream, where under the cover of darkness the goods were transferred. The trucks would then disembark, at the ferry point and proceed on their onward journey. Everyone benefited with the ferry staff earning in a few hours what they did not earn in six months.” The practice would have continued had not one truck met with an accident and spilled the contents on the road, leading to unmasking of the smugglers and their ways.
This particular day, I am just pottering around my garden, when an old man saunters in. I soon recognise him, as one of the earliest persons defended by me, in a COFEPOSA case. As we got talking about the smuggling days, he narrates an incident.
“I was working as a cook and everyone tried to bring in a few gold biscuits to augment the earnings. The most difficult part was at the Bombay port when the rummaging staff of the Customs boarded the ship and checked every nook and cranny. So, new ways to hoodwink them had to be found.
On one particular occasion, I was caught off guard, as the Customs officials barged in. I was in the process of preparing lunch and had no time to find a hiding place for a dozen or so gold biscuits I had with me. So, I did the only thing that I could think of and continued to cook a meat stew. The Customs personnel came into the kitchen, checked every conceivable spot, looked suspiciously at me and hurled a few questions. What is cooking? Asked, one. Beef and pork, I said under my breath. The officer quickly moved away, seemingly not even wishing to smell the food on the fire. The captain commended me for what he said was the best stew he had ever tasted. I chuckled to myself for only I knew what went into its making. Later, I carefully retrieved my gold biscuits from the ‘handi’ of stew, which by now had cooled!”
Those were also the days of the licence raj when getting an LPG connection, required connections. Newspapers regularly reported breaking of LPG godowns and thefts of cylinders. All such thefts came to an end about twenty years ago. And here is why. There actually were never any thefts. It was the distributor who would himself feign a theft with the connivance of the police and perhaps of the petroleum companies. As the godown and its contents were insured, no loss was suffered. But importantly, the stolen cylinders would be recycled back through the black market. It was a win-win situation for the distributor.
………And the telephone operators too had their own ways of raking in the moolah. Many a man from my side of Goa, was working hard in Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and so on, to earn a few petro dollars. And intriguingly, the telephones suffered breakdown, mostly on Thursdays. Harried housewives would then rush post haste, to the telephone exchange at Cansaulim, to somehow get their phone in order. Friday was the day, when husbands, would phone their wives in Goa. And the telephone operators had seen an opportunity to disengage select telephones, thus inviting the users to come over. The telephones would be “repaired” after the regulatory bribe was paid.
Liberalisation has solved the problems of thefts of LPG cylinders and breakdowns of telephone!
Not to be outdone, the present Goa Government has found its own way of defrauding the ordinary citizen, without the citizen even knowing it. Just go to any stamp vendor and try to buy a Rs 50 stamp paper for an affidavit. No matter where you go, you will never find one. So in frustration and disgust you have to buy a Rs 100 stamp paper for your affidavit. The Government has simply stopped printing of Rs 50 stamp paper for the last year or more. The income is doubled without even a budgetary provision. Can you beat that?
(Radharao F.Gracias is a senior Trial Court Advocate, a former Independent MLA, a political activist, with a reputation for oratory and interests in history and ornithology.)
