Satish Handa, April 3
Punjab Police during routine checking at Jharmeri near Haryana-Punjab border on Ambala-Chandigarh highway recovered over 2 kg gold bricks of value worth over Rs 7.5 crore smuggled from South Africa. Police stopped car in early morning hours, during search recovered a bag containing a wooden box having two gold bricks and arrested four persons identified as Rakesh, Balbir both residents of Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, Sanjay Kumar resident of Kangra and Jaswant Singh resident of Jodhpur. Arrested persons during preliminary investigation admitted that the gold smuggled from South Africa was being taken to Hamirpur for converting gold bricks into 20 gm gold biscuits. Police seized gold and arrested four carrying gold bricks.
Information reveals, a Dubai based network was very active in gold smuggling in India causing heavy revenue loss to government and sometime ago arrested an NRI Ramesh Malik hailing from Rohtak running a automobile workshop at Dubai. CIA staff Rohtak police had seized gold of value worth Rs 3.5 crore at International air port New Delhi and during police interrogation he admitted involved in illegal gold smuggling business without paying custom duty since past over a decade through international flights from Dubai converted into domestic flights thus avoiding checking by custom department staff. He disclosed that gold smuggling cases witness drastic increase during festival season between the months November to February every year without paying custom duty thus causing heavy revenue loss to the government. According to Information reveals, 36% Custom Duty is applicable on gold and female passengers travelling by air are permissible to carry 35 gm gold of value not over Rs 1 lakh, whereas a male passenger travelling by air is permissible by the government to carry 18 gm gold of value less than Rs 50000. During police investigation it was disclosed there are several rackets functioning near the gold market in Dubai having a network to provide training, assistance to carry smuggled gold from Dubai to India. Information reveals that the price of gold in Dubai gold market is nearly 20% lesser than the price of gold in India. The smuggling of gold is carried by various measures including hiding gold biscuits or ornaments in the luggage, food items, shoe soles, in private portions of body in under garments, hair and even inside the mouth.