STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: It has come to light that Guwahati is not only a transit point for smuggled Myanmarese gold, but it has also become a transit point for gold smuggled from Dubai.
According to sources in the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), gold from Dubai is brought to Bangladesh and then to Tripura. From Tripura, the contraband gold is sent to Assam, from where it goes to West Bengal and Delhi and thence to other parts of India.
According to the sources, two new modus operandi used by the smugglers have been detected so far. The first one, clever in its simplicity, was detected recently at the Guwahati Railway Station. A woman tried to smuggle 700 gm of gold by train with the simple ploy of wearing it in the form of numerous ornaments.
The sources said that she had come from Dubai to Bangladesh. Subsequently, she entered Tripura and reached the Guwahati Railway Station by train. She was travelling to Kolkata when she was arrested.
According to the sources, she had smuggled gold using this route and method at least 15 times before she was caught. The sources said that the kingpins of this gold smuggling racket use smart middle-class women as couriers and pay them around Rs 8,000-10,000 per trip.
The second modus operandi was unearthed at the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) Airport and it was discovered that smuggled gold is brought even in the form of a chemical-laced paste which enables the smugglers to evade scanning machines and metal detectors. It was the first such case to be detected in the Northeast, the CBIC sources said.
They informed that Customs officials saw a suspicious paste in a bag on the scanner at the airport. Interestingly, the bag had already passed the metal detector. When questioned by Customs officials the owner of the bag, who had come from Imphal in Manipur, said that it was a traditional medicinal ointment. However, the Customs officials grew suspicious. They melted the paste and found that 80% of the paste was pure gold.
The owner of the bag was then arrested.
It may be mentioned in the context of gold smuggling that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) made significant seizures of smuggled Myanmarese-origin gold in the Northeastern region, including Guwahati, during 2020-2021.
In all, 239.5 kg of Myanmarese-origin gold was seized by DRI sleuths from different locations in the Northeast during this period. The biggest haul was made in Guwahati about two years ago when DRI officials intercepted a Toyota Innova near Khanapara here and recovered Myanmarese-origin gold hidden on the floor and gearbox cavity of the vehicle. They found 25 bundles, each containing 20 gold biscuits. The seized gold weighed 82.98 kg and was valued at Rs 42.71 crore.
Three persons had been arrested in this connection.
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