` 16 cr worth of gold, currency seized by customs since ‘16

Dhiraj Harmalkar

dhiraj@herald-goa.com

VASCO: Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of people who have been nabbed for trying to smuggle gold.  

According to Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Dr Raghvendra P, the success behind the identification of such persons and the subsequent gold seizures, has been attributed to the exhaustive study of intelligence gathering which covers studying travel details, observing any suspicious behavior and their interrogation techniques.

“This is due to the thorough intelligence gathering, in-depth analysis of intelligence followed by swift action, which has led to efficient gold and currency seizing activities in recent years,” the Dy Commissioner reiterated.   

Against this backdrop, gold worth Rs 12,94,77,718, and currency worth Rs 3,19,54,153, which includes foreign and Indian currency, have been seized from the year 2016 to the ongoing 2019-20 financial year at the Dabolim airport.

While there have been several cases, which was detected by the scanner of the Customs Department, officials stated that they have been keeping a close eye over the last couple of years, for any suspicious activity and for people who are always willing hide gold or currency to evade customs duty and earn extra money in India. 

Elaborating further, Dr Raghvendra felt that such activities are driven by the aim to make an additional profit because of the price difference of currencies. He also stated that another reason to avoid customs duty is due to the prevailing rules in India. 

“There are certain quantities; limitations in bringing gold in India and beyond the permissible limit, people have to pay customs duties and taxes,” he added.

When asked to give the examples of the lengths, these people will go to, to smuggle gold or currency, officials spoke about how their teams had found gold concealed in milk powder and in other cases, hidden in toys. 

Listing further examples, the officials revealed that once, a foreigner lady had even hidden gold in paste form and had made a separate holding space in her jeans pants and in her waist band. 

There was also another case, where a lady had hidden gold in jewellery form inside her hair bun. 

In another high profile case, a person had hidden gold biscuits worth Rs 15 lakh at the base of a ‘tower’ gift item. 

The officials further shared statistics about gold and currency seized by the customs department since the financial year of 2016 to the ongoing 2019-2020 financial year at the Dabolim airport. 

During the financial year 2016-17, 8 cases were booked, wherein gold weighing 19,756.54 grams, worth Rs 5,42,99,619 was seized. In the year 2017-18, 17 cases were booked, wherein gold weighing 13,162.73 grams, worth rupees 3,75,37,235 was seized. In the year 2018- 19, 19 cases were booked, wherein gold weighing 9,195 grams, worth Rs 2,59,44,526 was seized. Finally, for the year 2019-20, 5 cases have been booked, wherein gold weighing 3,577.50 grams, worth Rs 1,16,96,338 was seized.  The total grams of gold seized for these years comes up to 45691.77 grams and its worth rupees 12,94,77,718.

Regarding currencies, for the financial year, 2016-17, 5 cases were booked, wherein cash worth Rs1,07,63,687 was seized, which included both foreign and Indian currency. In the year 2017-18, 4 cases were booked, wherein cash worth Rs 1,34,42,829 was seized. In the year, 2018-19, 6 cases were booked, wherein cash worth Rs 77,47,637 was seized by Customs. The total amount of currency seized worth rupees 3,19,54,153.