DRI busts gold smuggling racket worth Rs 2,000 crore

NEW DELHI: A major gold smuggling racket that illegally brought around 7,000 kilograms of gold worth over Rs 2,000 crore from Myanmar to India in past over two years has been busted by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence ( DRI).

The syndicate was smuggling the gold through Indo-Myanmar land border and then bringing it to Delhi and other locations in domestic flights by declaring the yellow metal as valuable cargo, the DRI said in a press release issued today.

The case came to light when the officers of Delhi zonal unit of the agency seized 10 kg of gold at the domestic cargo terminal of Indira Gandhi International airport recently. The seized gold bars of 24 carat purity were admittedly smuggled into India from Myanmar and brought to Delhi from Guwahati by a domestic flight, it said.

Market value of the 10 kg of seized gold is Rs 3.1 crore. Involvement of the employees of the airlines and others is being investigated by the DRI.

Two accused--a Guwahati-based businessman and his Delhi-based aide--have been arrested by the DRI and sent to judicial custody. They had brought gold to Delhi from Guwahati on 617 occasions by declaring it as the valuable cargo in domestic flights, the release said.

"The Delhi zonal unit of the DRI has busted a major gold smuggling racket involving smuggling of around 7,000 kgs of gold worth more than Rs 2,000 crore, over a period of past two and half years. This probably is the single biggest case of detection of gold smuggling by any agency in India," it said.