Airport housekeeper held for helping gold smugglers

Housekeeper at Mumbai airport arrested with foreign nationals for smuggling gold dust worth ₹2.06 crore in wax form. Remanded in judicial custody.

MUMBAI: A 42-year-old housekeeper working at the lounge at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) was arrested by the air intelligence unit on Wednesday along with two foreign nationals for allegedly smuggling in gold dust worth ₹2.06 crore in the form of wax. All three arrested accused women were produced in court on Thursday and remanded in judicial custody.

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Customs officials said on Wednesday, they received a tip-off indicating some international transit passengers would handover gold to a housekeeper, so it could be transported out of the premises safely. The officials reached the international transit area accordingly and apprehended Rubina Bano Shaikh, 42, a housekeeper at the lounge who lived in Malad West.

Upon questioning, Shaikh confessed to being involved in the smuggling. She said she met two foreigners – Mary Jane Mella, 41, a resident of Satwa, Dubai, and Maila Lacson Ordonez, 49, a resident of Sharjah, both travelling from Dubai on Philippine passports – in the toilet on level 4 of the lounge. The women gave her two pouches, each containing 3,700 gram 24-karat gold dust in wax form, which she hid in the staff toilet on the same floor. The pouches, found hidden in undergarments kept inside the staff toilet, were subsequently recovered by police.

Shaikh was ₹20,000 for smuggling the gold out of the airport, said customs officials, while the two foreign nationals too conceded to giving the packets to her. All three women were booked and arrested under the Customs Act and under section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.