Air Customs officials have busted a smuggling racket that involved five contract staff who were providing housekeeping services at the Airport.
According to Officials, they had maintained a special vigil at the transit area, based on information regarding gold smuggling by a Dubai returnee on flight 6E 8497. On noticing a janitor entering the toilet in the transit area, officials followed him and caught him in the act of retrieving black bundles from a waste bin. On being cut open, three gold paste packets weighing 2 kg were recovered. 1.81 Kg of gold valued at Rs. 93.2 lakhs was recovered, extracted, and seized under Customs Act.
The suspect passenger who had carried the gold from Dubai was intercepted and identified as Sheikhussman,35, a Trichy native. When he received a call from an individual who had come to receive him, officials followed Sheikh to the area outside the airport and nabbed the person who had come to receive the smuggler. He was identified as one Syed Ibrahim Shah,21, of Chennai.
The janitor was identified as Gnanasekar,31, who was an employee of M/s Service Master Clean Limited (SMCL), Chennai which provides housekeeping services at the airport.
On being questioned, the janitor confessed that his colleague, Shankar, had asked him to collect the bundles from the toilet in the transit area, based on orders from their supervisor.
Supervisor Kumar who worked for Service Master Clean Limited (SMCL), was arrested later and found to be the mastermind of this racket. The five arrested persons are the passenger, the janitor, his colleague, their supervisor and the person who came to receive the passenger.
In another case, based on intelligence, officials boarded and rummaged Etihad Airways flight EY-268 which arrived from Abu Dhabi and found three bundles in both aircraft toilets. On being cut open, four gold bars of 1kg each with foreign markings and three rectangular gold plates weighing 5.1kg, totally valued at Rs. 2.63 Crore were recovered and seized as unclaimed.
The combined value of the gold seized in both cases is R s3.6crore and it weighs 6.9kg.
Further investigation is in progress.
