On Thursday the arrest of a ground staffer at the RGIA on charges of smuggling gold was a result of a four-month long meticulously-planned operation by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Aslam the staff member of Menzies Bobba Ground Handling Services was held after he has helped smuggle 3.03 kg gold from the airport.
The gold smuggling operation was first emerged on January 15 when DRI sleuths arrested another Menzies and Bobba worker, Srinath who was picked up with gold bars weighing 4.65 kg hidden in cigarette packets on an aerobridge and the gold had been delivered by a passenger arriving from Dubai on a Qatar Airways flight.
It was Aslam who was supposed to have picked up the gold, but he noticed the movement of DRI sleuths near the aerobridge and sent Srinath instead. A DRI official has stated that Aslam has began to collect gold from carriers after they came off the aerobridge and he used to bypass CISF personnel posted in the area to exclusively screen staff members entering the aerobridge.
The DRI additional director general MK Singh has said that this is yet another case where personnel employed with agencies functioning at the airport have been found to be involved in the gold smuggling and there had been suspicion regarding the role of certain CISF personnel as well.
