The Customs department announced that it discovered 604 kg of smuggled gold worth Rs 360 crore at Mumbai International Airport in just 11 months, making it the country’s number one airport in such hauls, surpassing Delhi’s 374 kg and Chennai’s 306 kg. According to accounts, the seizure at Mumbai airport between April 2022 and February 2023 increased dramatically from 91 kg in 2022-23 to 91 kg in 2023-24.
“Mumbai is a transit hub for gold smugglers because the precious metal has a large market; several syndicates, including jewellers, finance the racketeers,” Customs officials said. It is also claimed that Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai are favoured for international travel.
Hyderabad has also seen a slow rise in gold smuggling cases with 124 kg seized compared with 55kg seized last year.
In 2019-20, before the pandemic, Delhi airport had witnessed seizure of 494 kg smuggled gold, Mumbai 403 kg and Chennai 392 kg. During 2020-21, when gold smuggling significantly reduced, rackets involving smuggling of 150 kg were busted at Chennai airport, 146.9 kg at Kozhikode, 88.4 kg at Delhi and 87 kg at Mumbai.
Since October 2022, over 20 foreign nationals have been arrested for smuggling gold in Mumbai.
On February 10, Customs officials arrested two Kenyan nationals, including an international airline crew member, for aiding and abetting smuggling of 18kg of gold worth Rs 9 crore at the city airport.
On January 23, the DRI seized 37 kg of gold and Rs 2.3 crore in cash from a Kalbadevi jeweller who had concealed the metal inside a shipment of machine rotors. This is one of the year’s largest captures at the city airport.
According to the World Gold Council (WGC), precious metal smuggling in India has increased by 33% to 160 tonne in 2022 compared to the pre-Covid era, owing to an increase in import duty to 12.5 percent from 7.5 percent.
With an additional 3 percent GST, consumers pay 18.45 percent tax on refined gold. Besides, with gold prices crossing Rs 60,000 per 10gm, “profit” from gold smuggling has increased from 15 percent to 20 percent, officials said.
Meanwhile, India allows men to bring in 20 gram of gold and women 40 gram, legally. Jewellers said a total of 720 tonne of gold comes to India every year, of which 380 tonne enters legally with 15 percent import duty and 3 percent IGST, and the rest, 340 tonne, is smuggled in.