Labourers held smuggling saffron

Following Customs officials cracking down on their carriers from Bhatkal and Kasargod, saffron smugglers had honed in on poor labourers from Gujarat employed on fish trawlers in Dubai.

Easily bought with a mere Rs500 and a free ticket home, the smugglers had seemingly found the perfect carriers whose shabby clothing would never catch the eye of Customs officials.

That was until Monday morning, when a team of Customs officials, led by assistant commissioner (Customs) Sameer Wankhede, nabbed three such labourers concealing saffron in their baggage at Mumbai International Airport.

“Three middle-aged passengers — Gani Jusab, Latifa Adam Gajan and Subhania Bacchu were found concealing saffron in their baggage,” confirmed Mahendra Pal, additional commissioner of Air Intelligence Unit (AIU).

The three carriers, travelling in two flights from Dubai, were carrying 22kg of saffron worth approximately Rs1,50,000. “The saffron was concealed first in plastic and then with cloth. When screened, the saffron looks like cloth, a fact the smugglers wanted to exploit,” revealed a source, adding that a recent tip-off was what alerted the Customs officials, since poor labourers are often their last suspects.

Besides the carriers, Customs officials also succeeded in nabbing the receiver of the consignment, a man called Ibrahim, who was waiting outside the airport to collect it. “The consignment was mainly meant for Manish Market and the Masjid Bandar markets. In the present festive season, saffron can be even more lucrative than drug smuggling,” said a source.

According to sources, Ibrahim is just one among the many links to the international smuggling cartel which operates between Persia-Iran, Iran-Dubai and Dubai-India. The agency is keeping the names of others under wraps to avoid alerting the masterminds.