Why is smuggling gold illegal

Shantanu Guha Ray is a Delhi-based journalist. Taking the shine off gold in India. Gold hidden in India airplane cargo. India eases gold lending rules. India raises duty on gold jewellery. Has gold lost its glitter in India? How much gold is there in the world? India raises duty on gold imports.

Image source, Reuters. Seized gold bars kept on display by customs officers at the international airport in Calcutta. Image source, AP.

But Delhi is not keen to cut the duty yet. But that looks like a near impossible task. The National Investigating Agency NIA is also investigating the case, as the Union Home department suspects the smuggled gold is also channeled to fund anti-India activities.

Both Sarath and Swapna have already confessed to smuggling more than kilograms in the past few months through the same channel, bypassing checking at the Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi airports. Many politicians are alleged to have pressurised the Customs officials to release the consignment without checking. Telephone call details of Swapna and Suresh also reveal nearly 14 conversations since June 5 with the Kerala's education minister KT Jaleel. He denies any wrong doings, but has confessed he knows Swapna for nearly four years.

Investigations are on in full swing, and the NIA has approached Interpol seeking a "blue notice" against one Faisal Fareed, a Dubai-based businessman and a key accused in the smuggling racket. Even while the issue was snowballing in Kerala for the past ten days, the Customs had arrested many gold smugglers at the Kochi, Karipur and Kannur airports. On June 22, the Customs Intelligence at the Kannur airport caught four people, who came in a chartered flight from UAE, for trying to smuggle out three kilograms of gold.

Within ten days of resuming international flight operations to Kerala after the lockdown, the Customs had seized over 9 kilograms of gold and registered 9 cases between June According to the data of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence DRI , some of the major gold seizures in were 6. In , The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has observed increased incidents of smuggling from new countries like China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, other than the old smuggling hubs like Nepal, Dubai, Sharjah and other Middle East countries.

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