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DRI arrest gold smuggling racket kingpin

According to DRI officials, the racket came to light in May when they arrested a carrier, Mubarik Hussain Raks, who arrived in Mumbai from Abu Dhabi in a jet airways flight with 3.99 kg of smuggled gold biscuits worth Rs 1.2 crore.

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Directorate of Revenue intelligence(DRI), Indore unit recently arrested a Mumbai-based man who allegedly ran a gold smuggling racket from Mumbai. The accused, identified as Sameer Harun Merchant(49), resident of Andheri would send carriers abroad to smuggle gold on monetary consideration.

According to DRI officials, the racket came to light in May when they arrested a carrier, Mubarik Hussain Raks, who arrived in Mumbai from Abu Dhabi in a jet airways flight with 3.99 kg of smuggled gold biscuits worth Rs 1.2 crore.

The smuggled gold was brought by Raks from Abu Dhabi after concealing it in seat on the flight. He had taken a domestic flight from Indore to escape customs. Following the tip off, Raks was intercepted by Indore DRI officials at Mumbai International Airport, where, upon searching his baggage, he was found possessing the gold.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Raks had smuggled the gold consignment on the instructions of Merchant for monetary consideration and he was told to deliver the gold to a receiver in Mumbai. The DRI officials then identified receiver, Merchant using Call Detail Records and Merchant was then traced to Mumbai. After collecting sufficient evidence, a team of Indore DRI was dispatched to Mumbai, who arrested Merchant from his Andheri flat.

"Merchant is a habitual offender and was earlier arrested by the agency in an NDPS case while smuggling a huge consignment of drugs worth crores by flight. After being lodged in a jail for almost nine years, he was released in 2014. Since then, he is suspected to have been carrying out a gold smuggling racket from Mumbai. It's just the tip of the iceberg and we suspect that in the past two-three years, Merchant may have smuggled huge amounts of gold.

We suspect involvement of flight attendants. Our probe is on," said a DRI officer from Indore unit.

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