The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted a foreign currency smuggling racket involving many millions of dollars and an organized syndicate. In an overnight operation that spanned the length and breadth of T2, the International Terminal of Mumbai Airport, a crack team of sleuths from DRI, acting on a tip-off received from abroad, intercepted 4 passengers headed to Dubai and Bangkok in two separate flights. The passengers were detained just as they were about to board their respective flights. Upon searching their hand-baggage, a total of USD 410,000 (worth about Rs. 2.75 crore) was found to be concealed in 4 laptop bags.
The cartel had devised a unique way of smuggling out foreign currency. A few members of the cartel would be booked for domestic travel through Air India while a few other members would be booked for international travel, all within a few hours of each other. The foreign currency to be smuggled would be carried by the domestic passengers, who would hand over the same in carefully sealed lap top bags to their counterparts travelling abroad at the food court of T2, Mumbai airport. The international passengers, would have, by then, completed their check-in formalities and would have passed through baggage screening. With about half an hour to one hour before boarding, the international passengers would exchange bags with the domestic passengers and proceed to the boarding gates.
In the current case, multiple teams of DRI were deployed at T2 on the night of 24th July. At around 0130 hours, two passengers were intercepted when they were about to board their flight to Dubai. Parallelly, another team of DRI intercepted 2 more passengers when they were about to board the flight to Bangkok. Subsequently, the 4 passengers who were booked to travel to Goa were picked up. In all, 8 individuals have been arrested in connection with the case, which is one of its kind. The smuggling of $ 410,000 is one of the largest ever foreign currency cases booked by DRI in recent times. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that the arrested passengers had made more than 100 such trips over the past one year and have smuggled out more than Rs. 50 crore of foreign currency out of the country.
Smuggling out foreign currency damages our economy by removing foreign exchange from the commerce of our country. These dollars are procured into the country at high exchange rates and if they are taken out through such illegal channels, they contribute to further weakening of the rupee, thereby affecting our economy. Further, the smuggled foreign currency is used as payment for illegal commodities such as smuggled gold and other contraband items.