Chennai YouTuber sets up shop at airport for smuggling gold, earns ₹3 crore in two months
A souvenir shop at Chennai airport has been exposed as a front for a Sri Lankan gold smuggling syndicate.
A souvenir shop at Chennai airport has been exposed as a front for a Sri Lankan gold smuggling syndicate. The shop’s owner, Mohammed Sabir Ali, was recruited by the syndicate to help them smuggle gold, reported The New Indian Express.
Customs have arrested Ali and seven of his employees for their role in smuggling 267 kg gold worth ₹167 crore over a period of two months.
Ali set up a retail souvenir shop, Airhub, at Chennai airport’s departure lounge. Sources say that a member of the Sri Lankan gold smuggling syndicate, living in Abu Dhabi, paid ₹70 lakh to help Ali get the lease for the shop.
The syndicate recruited 29-year-old Sabir Ali after seeing videos of his YouTube channel, shoppingboyz, even though he had no prior experience of running a shop. It was also the syndicate that suggested the idea of opening a shop at Chennai airport to help with gold smuggling.
How the man's scheme worked
Ali and his seven employees were trained by the syndicate - through their shop, they received gold from transit passengers and gave it to receivers outside the airport. For this, the former YouTuber and the employees received a commission of ₹3 crore for two months.
However, their scheme unravelled on June 29 when a Customs official, who suspected one of the employees, found 1 kg gold powder at the shop. The employee as well as the transit passenger who smuggled the gold were taken into custody, followed by the arrest of Ali and his other employees.
The Customs department is now investigating how all eight members of the group possessed identity cards issued by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), as they were only contract employees. Because of these identity cards, they were not subjected to security checks.