VASCO: The officers of Air Intelligence Unit of Goa Customs on Monday arrested two passengers and seized currency worth Rs 42.70 lakh at Dabolim.
According to information while the international passenger was planning to travel by Oman air, the domestic passenger was part of his plan to outsmart the Customs officials. However, their luck ran out under the tight vigilance and extensive groundwork intelligence of the Customs authorities.
“Before the departure of Oman Air flight from Goa we were checking the passengers’ profile and found that two passengers from Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra had booked their tickets jointly but one of them had purchased a ticket to Oman while the other to Mumbai. Thus while we were checking the baggage of international passenger without his knowledge we suspected something fishy in his baggage. We allowed him to check-in and once he took his boarding pass, we detained the passenger and took him for checking and found foreign currency in his baggage” Santimano informed.
While commenting on modus operandi, he said, “It was a trolley bag with another trolley bag in it. The trolley bag had a cardboard at the bottom with a zipper and after we opened it we found foreign currency worth Rs 38.70 lakh approximately in assorted form. Since we had a doubt we decided to check the baggage of the passenger who was supposed to board the same flight to Mumbai. To our surprise, this passenger was just carrying a plastic bag containing Rs 5 lakh. During the questioning by Customs officers, the passengers broke down and confessed that they were trying to smuggle the said currency to Dubai”.
The persons were arrested and the said currency was seized under the Customs Act and FEMA.
The unit was headed by Assistant Commissioner, under the supervision of GB Santimano, Additional Commissioner of Goa Customs.The whole exercise was conducted under the guidance of R Manohar, Commissioner of Customs Goa. Further investigation is in process.
