Customer profiling, smart surveillance helps customs officials nab gold smugglers at Hyderabad Airport

In the last fortnight, the Customs Department officials seized around 10 kg of gold at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Shamshabad

Hyderabad: Customer profiling and smart surveillance is helping the Customs Department officials nab those making surreptitious attempts to smuggle in gold from foreign countries. In the last fortnight, the customs seized around 10 kg of gold at the RGI Airport Shamshabad.

Such passengers attempting to smuggle in gold were found to be adopting innovative ways to conceal the gold. Right from sanitary pads, to pasting it around the waist and carrying it in shoes, and concealing it in emergency lights, the customs officials detected and recovered the gold before seizing it.

“A common modus operandi is to make small balls out of the gold paste and conceal it in the rectum. The balls are later ejected and handed over by the smuggler to the person assigned to collect it somewhere outside the airport,” said a customs official.

The officials are analysing the passenger profile before zeroing in on him. “There is data on the visits of a particular passenger to a particular country. Based on the profiling, whenever the passenger arrives, we check his credentials, total visits to a particular country, and other details. Sometimes our officials travel to that particular country and take the flight taken by the passenger and keep a watch all through the trip,” said the official.

In recent times the officials found that the syndicates of smugglers are luring first-timers as well to smuggle the gold in exchange for flight tickets and other incentives.

“Different modus operandi like using sanitary pads, pasting around waist or legs and concealing in shoes is being adopted. They try to hoodwink us, nevertheless, when we have a strong suspicion about a passenger, we check both the passenger and the belongings,” he said.

The intelligence agencies have alerted the Customs Department over the possibility of gold smuggling by certain groups to raise money for nefarious activities in the country. Hence, the Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs Department increased the vigil on the flow of foreign currency from India to other countries using which the syndicates purchase gold in Africa or Gulf countries and bring it into the country.

Source.