Smuggling syndicate busted, 30 kg gold worth ₹21 crore seized

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Mumbai zonal unit, on Monday busted a syndicate allegedly involved in gold smuggling. The agency seized 30 kg of unaccounted gold valued at ₹21 crore, ₹20 lakh cash and arrested one person during a raid at a workshop in Kalbadevi

Mumbai: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Mumbai zonal unit, on Monday busted a syndicate allegedly involved in gold smuggling. The agency seized 30 kg of unaccounted gold valued at ₹21 crore, ₹20 lakh cash and arrested one person during a raid at a workshop in Kalbadevi.

Smuggling syndicate busted, 30 kg gold worth ₹21 crore seized

According to the DRI officials, after analysing information obtained from an investigation into seizure of 5 kg of gold from the air cargo complex in Mumbai in May 2022, they developed some intelligence on a syndicate involving foreign nationals and locals involved in processing and distribution of the gold. The syndicate members were using hawala channels for the payment of the smuggled gold, the DRI said.

Based on this intelligence, a discreet surveillance was mounted by a team of DRI officers on the travel pattern of few foreign and Indian nationals.

Accordingly, the agency in a well-coordinated operation raided the workshop, where the melting and processing of smuggled gold was taking place. During the raid more than 36 kg of unaccounted gold in various stages of processing was recovered, the agency said.

The person in-charge of the unit, Prashant Mainkar, a Sangali native, was taken into custody as he failed to produce any documents supporting the possession of such a huge quantity of gold.

During questioning, he admitted that he had obtained the gold from various individuals including foreign nationals in the form of capsules carried through body concealment, bags, clothes layering and also smuggled in through different types of machines.

Further probe revealed that the gold was delivered to various domestic players on a daily basis, based on the codes being operated by the syndicate. The search led to evidence indicating the different methods of concealment for smuggling of gold, the DRI officials said. The agency is now looking for the other members of the syndicate.

The seizure is believed to be a significant development for the agency as it is for the first time in recent years that they have been able to penetrate such a syndicate and unearth the system of processing the smuggled gold and its distribution.

Usually, in such cases, probes reach a dead end after arrest of carriers as in most of the cases they do not know the identity of the persons to whom they had to handover the smuggled gold.