In the third case of an ‘insider’ involvement in gold smuggling at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) this year, Mumbai Airport Customs officials on Wednesday morning arrested two employees of Sky Gourmet Flight kitchen as they were attempting a series of gold retrievals from flights. Both the accused have admitted that they smuggled gold at least 30 times in the past, said Customs officials.
Based on the employees’ confession and inspection of their WhatsApp messages, 6.79 kg of gold worth Rs 1.65 crore was seized from four Jet Airways flights on Wednesday morning,” officials said.
The seizures included seven gold bars worth Rs19.18 lakh from a Dubai-Mumbai flight,12 gold bars worth Rs 34.85 lakh from an Abu Dhabi-Mumbai flight, 11 gold bars worth Rs 31.1 lakh from a Kuwait-Mumbai flight and 2 kg bars and 12 tola bars worth Rs 78.83 lakh from a Muscat-Mumbai flight.
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In all the cases, gold was concealed beneath the seat cushion and seat number was sent to the accused via Whatsapp.
“Abdul Razak Shaikh and Siraj Mohammed Sayed are employees of Sky Gourmet Flight Kitchen. Further, a search conducted at Sayed’s residence in Jari Mari also resulted in recovery of Rs 5.8 lakh,” said a Customs official.
After a short car chase, the receivers of the gold consignment were also arrested on Wednesday. Vijay Tamhanekar, was apprehended outside Hotel Hyatt, Sahar, and further receiver Shahabuddin CA was apprehended outside McDonalds restaurant, Andheri (East), officials said.
Customs’ driver stopped the vehicle of one of the fleeing accused in Andheri. “Our driver Allaudin tried to stop Tamhanekar’s car when he tried to flee and had to crash out official Tavera into the accused’s car to stop him,” said one of the Customs officials.
Last month, a Jet Airways attendant on a Dubai-Mumbai flight was caught trying to smuggle gold and diamonds worth Rs 1.06 crore at the Mumbai airport. While in February, Customs officials caught a passenger service assistant of Celebi Nas for acting as a carrier for gold worth Rs 1.5 crore.
In the past one year, around 13 ‘insiders’ were nabbed smuggling gold. “In the last six months, a lot of insiders were caught, but these rackets are tough to crack because not all of them go through Customs areas of the airport,” said Milind Lanjewar, Additional Commissioner of Customs.
