Sabarmati Central Jail

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport

Ahmedabad

Gold smuggling: Customs officer got Rs 25k for every passenger that got safe passage A Customs officer, who was arrested in a gold smuggling case in June, used to get Rs 25,000 per consignment of gold that came from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Kenya

3 held for smuggling in Rs 8.7-cr gold Ahmedabad has become agateway for smugglers, especially

Qatar Airways

Customs and Central Excise sleuths have finally nabbed the mastermind who smuggled a mind-boggling 4-tonne gold worth Rs 1,300 crore into India in just over five years. Accused Rutugna Trivedi, who was arrested on Monday, is considered the most vital link in what is being touted to as Gujarat's largest ever gold smuggling operation.Trivedi, currently booked by local police and sent to judicial custody in, was absconding since July this year after the Customs department finally got wind of this multi-million-dollar enterprise after nabbing a carrier with 24 kg of gold atinin June.After the operation got busted, those who had not been arrested by officials went into hiding, including Trivedi, who escaped by road to a neighbouring state. Currently, operation is on to nab at least seven absconders.Customs officials also arrested Nita Parmar, another absconding accused, believed to have allegedly handled the books of accounts for the vast and convoluted smuggling operation.This comes about a month after the Customs arrested the largest financer of the operation, Pramodgiri aka Raju Goswami, a well-known jeweller in Rajkot dealing in silver ornaments.Speaking about Trivedi, sources said he was a sales executive and worked in multiple companies across continents before setting up the gold smuggling operation in India. Officials suspect he worked in at least two countries, includingand the United Arab Emirates (UAE), before returning to his hometown Ahmedabad to start the illegal operation.It is believed that happenstance, a system loophole and entrepreneurial spirit came together to get into smuggling of gold and run it undetected for more than five years. Just one seizure was all that was necessary to expose the entire cartel.Officials said Trivedi's international travel and a keen eye to study behaviour of Customs officials at airports came in handy to start the illicit trade. Trivedi acquainted himself with Jignesh Savaliya, a ground staffer posted at the Ahmedabad airport, with unrestricted access to cargo and passenger areas. Savaliya worked for a firm contracted to provide support services to many international airlines. He used this access to smuggle gold through Fly Dubai andflights coming to India from Dubai, UAE.Savaliya was arrested along with Lokesh, a carrier, on June 4 this year while attempting to smuggle 24.5 kg of 24-carat pure gold worth Rs 8.2 crore through the airport. This arrest by the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) exposed the racket.Of the 14 persons named in the gold smuggling case, nine have been arrested while five are absconding. The arrested have been booked under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA), 1974, under which they would be held in custody to prevent them from setting up another smuggling operation elsewhere.Among the key accused on the run are Hina Trivedi and Dharmagna Trivedi, wife and brother of Rutugna Trivedi. Both are believed to be in the UAE and local officials have written to other central agencies to help extradite the two to stand trial in India.