Thiruvananthapruam : The Customs, desperately looking to incriminate the govt and CM with false tales in the smuggling case, have frozen investigations into at least 2224 cases of gold smuggling carried out via Thiruvananthapuram airport. The Customs ducked cases for 1327 kilos of gold worth Rs 374.52 crores it seized in the past 6 years alone, the reason being links with gold smuggling mafia maintained by some high-ranking customs officials, and BJP leaders here and in Gujarat.
As per Customs Asst. Commissioner RR Goswami’s reply under RTI to activist, Raju Vazhakala, a total of 1327 kilos o f gold was seized across four airports in the state between April of 2015 and 28 February, 2021. Much of the caches came during 2019-20 when 533 kilos of gold was confiscated and 799 cases registered. 195.37 kilos of gold was seized up to 2020-21 February alone. Strangely, the Customs is quiet on what happened to all these cases it registered. In all cases, except for initiating charges against couriers, the Customs never brought out the end parties.
Most of the gold smuggled through airports are destined for Marvadis in Gujarat and a good majority among them have strong links with BJP - the reason why Customs case never takes off in that direction. In signature style, the Customs has not touched the real perpetrators pertaining to the diplomatic gold baggage too. Despite 9 months of investigations by NIA, Customs and ED officials, the probe teams are yet to identify who the real person at the receiving end might be or as to who send it from UAE. . In the gold smuggled via Karipur airport, CBI had caught up with 14 Customs officials including 3 Superintends for their involvement.
