Kerala: Cabin crew member smuggled gold seven occasions, detailed probe launched

Express News Service

MALAPPURAM: The customs’ air intelligence unit at Kozhikode airport has launched an in depth investigation into the incident during which 1.226kg of gold value Rs 63.56 lakh was seized from a cabin crew member of an Air India Express flight. It expects that the inquiry would reveal the involvement of extra individuals in smuggling within the state and overseas. The unit arrested Navneet Singh, a local of Delhi, who was a cabin crew member of IX 356 that arrived at Kozhikode airport final Wednesday. A senior customs official mentioned Navneet had smuggled gold at the least seven occasions by the airport.

“He might have smuggled more than 7 kg of gold through the airport. He is now under remand for 14 days,” the official mentioned. Navneet’s modus operandi was totally different. “Usually, gold carriers from the Gulf region themselves try to bring the consignment outside the airport. In his case, the carrier would leave the gold in the airplane and Navneet would bring it outside and hand it over to the smugglers. When we caught him, he had hidden the gold compound ins ide hi s shoes,” he added.

Navneet Singh

On the day of the seizure, Air India and another sources knowledgeable the customs that the flight captain is likely to be carrying unlawful gold with him. To keep away from a clumsy scenario of frisking the captain alone, the customs determined to frisk the whole cabin crew of the flight. “We couldn’t discover something from the captain. But cabin crew member Navneet revealed that he had hidden gold in his footwear earlier than we began frisking him. During detailed interrogation based mostly on the intelligence report with us, he confessed that he had smuggled gold seven occasions by the airport. He obtained Rs 1 lakh every time.

However, he was not conscious of the amount of gold he had handed over to the smugglers,” the official mentioned. Before being ar rested, Navneet managed to delete the decision and chat historical past from his cell phones. “He used two cell phones and one in all them was used to contact the gold smugglers. The name historical past on the telephones would assist us nab extra individuals concerned in gold smuggling.

He confessed to being part of seven gold smuggling incidents solely after we advised him concerning the secret info we had obtained. So, if we quiz him with the info retrieved from his telephones, he may reveal extra concerning the smuggling gangs,” the official mentioned.The customs sleuths in Kozhikode will hand over the case to their headquarters in Kochi if the telephone knowledge cause them to massive fishes within the unlawful enterprise.