Smugglers’ creativity goes for gold again

Smuggling has fallen out of favour as a villainous occupation on the silver screen in India, particularly since it has become more sordid than swashbuckling with the focus shifting to hard drugs from gold. Haji Mastan, Karim Lala and Yusuf Patel inspired many a blockbuster in their day but today’s kingpins are not inspirational, so to speak. Crackdowns on gold imports, however, have led to a recent resurgence in creative smuggling, which the film industry should look into as the painstaking work smugglers put in is commendable, even if illegal. This March, minuscule gold bars were smuggled into Mumbai hidden inside hollowed dates. The very next month in Hyderabad, customs officials found gold in LED lanterns, Kochi struck gold in powdered fruit juice, and Bhubaneswar authorities extracted it from mixer grinders.

However, the booby prize for smuggling must go to the Bangkok-bound duo who thought suitcases full of parwals (pointed gourd) would not invite suspicion at Kolkata’s airport given the Bengali predilection for it. Euro notes stuffed inside the parwals — instead of minced fish — certainly put a different spin on the favourite Bengali dish ‘potoler dolma’ and customs officials were not amused. If nothing else, the ability of officials to keep abreast of these ingenious methods deserves silver screen acknowledgement.