Mumbai: Customs officials at the city’s international airport busted a gold smuggling racket with the arrest of six persons, including three insiders, and seized 12.5kg of gold worth Rs 10 crore. In the past year, more than two dozen “inside staffers” have been arrested for smuggling.
The six arrested are Anil Chavan (29), Rohan Chavan (20), Vivek Rewale (36), Arshad Shaikh (26), Anas Patel (26) and Arbaz Tamboli (21). Three of them allegedly smuggled gold from abroad and handed it over to the other three who work at the airport.
Officials said they received intelligence that Rohan, who works at the airport, was involved. On Tuesday, he was to deliver a consignment to other accused near Sahar Village. A trap was laid, and Rohan was seen handing a few black packets to three men. Arshad, one of them, told cops the packets contained egg-shaped capsules with gold dust. Two more were later nabbed. All six were remanded in judicial custody. Their advocates Prabhakar Tripathi and Arun Gupta claimed they picked up the packets thrown by some fliers and informed CISF but were arrested. — S Ahmed Ali
