PANAJI
In a major seizure, the Goa branch of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at Dabolim airport arrested five passengers arriving from Dubai early Tuesday morning on charges of smuggling 38 prohibited drones, gold and other items worth a combined Rs 2.12 crore.
According to sources, the Goa branch of DRI had received reliable information that a prohibited drone was being smuggled from an international flight arriving at Dabolim airport early Tuesday morning. The DRI team then laid a trap at Dabolim Airport before an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah landed early Tuesday morning.
According to intelligence sources, the DRI team questioned five passengers “ identified as Wasid Ali Khan (Bihar), Junedul Haq (Mumbai), Junet Afzal Shaikh (Mumbai), Mohammad Ayub (Uttar Pradesh) and Mohsin Raza (Uttar Pradesh) “ and searched their luggage.
The DRI team then seized 38 prohibited high quality combo drones (Rs 49,08,156), 2.291 kgs of gold (Rs 1,11,02,515), 8 old laptops and 4,379 packets of American tobacco (Rs 52,50,421). Each of these 30-gram packets of tobacco is valued at Rs 1,199. The combined value of the seized items is worth Rs 2,12,61,092.
It is learnt that Junedul Haq had allegedly smuggled 455.33 grams of gold paste in capsules and concealed the capsules in his body.
Mohammad Ayub had allegedly smuggled 609 grams of gold powder in between two layers of a trouser. It has also come to light that Junet Afzal Sheikh had also allegedly concealed 644.72 grams of gold powder in between two layers of a trouser.
The prohibited high-quality combo drone has a height of 5,000 metres and a range of around 18.5 kms. The 48-megapixel camera and state-of-the-art capabilities are priced at Rs 1.3 lakh each. The central government has issued a notification banning drones reaching a height of more than 15 metres. These bans apply to all, except for law enforcement agencies.
Central security agencies will investigate how and why such drones have been smuggled into the country. The DRI team arrested the five suspects under Sections 77 and 111 of the Customs Act 1962 and also under the Baggage Rules 2016.
