Two Customs Department drivers have been allegedly caught red-handed while trying to smuggle 60 bottles of Scotch whisky at the international airport.
Renni Abraham and Raju Parulekar
Two Customs Department drivers have been allegedly caught red-handed while trying to smuggle 60 bottles of Scotch whisky from an ITDC-run duty-free shop at the international airport.
SS Jadhav and Mukund Atkare were arrested on Thursday and were released on a bail of Rs3000 each. The duo allegedly used the department vehicles to smuggle the bottles on Wednesday evening.
The timing was so perfect that their superior officers were busy ensconced in a meeting to assess the Budget.
Probably under the impression that there was no one else to take note of their plans, they decided to do the crime. Their luck, however, ran out near the domestic airport at 5.30 pm when their car was intercepted by the State Excise Department officials who had a specific tip-off about the consignment.
Additional Customs Commissioner (Administration and Vigilance) and Joint Customs Commissioner (Air Intelligence Unit) launched an enquiry into the episode. The enquiry, sources said, had some startling revelations.
“The smuggling of scotch bottles from the duty-free shops into the local market by avoiding the payment of customs duty is believed to have carried by a particular health officer attached to the airport along with an ITDC official.
When contacted Joint Commissioner of Customs, G Ravindranath, said a probe is on to unravel the network behind this duty-evasion racket by sneaking out liquor bottles meant to be exclusively sold duty free to passengers arriving into India or departing for foreign shores from the international airport.
Each passenger may purchase two 1 litre bottles from these stores. At least 8000 passengers fly out of Mumbai while 10, 000 passengers arrive to city every day.
Of the five duty-free stores in the airport facility, the ITDC run store is the hub from where all liquor bottles are transferred to the remaining four units.
A surprise check on this store Wednesday, conducted immediately after the excise officials arrested the two drivers, revealed that a total of 724 bottles of a popular scotch brand were sold out of a total of 1200 bottles that were issued for sale at the five duty free shops on Wednesday.
Interestingly, though the 60 bottles seized were being smuggled out for sale in the domestic market, the stock register at the ITDC duty free store duly reflected their sale to bonafide passengers along with their passport details.
A senior official told DNA: “The modus operandi is simple. The passenger manifesto is available to the syndicate which must have listed out 30 passenger names (all foreign nationals who departed on flights out of Indian on Wednesday.
The register maintains these bottles were sold to them duty free with the cash duly collected by the ITDC store. This would make it difficult to cross check with the passenger who is abroad.”
Inspector Nitin Chavan, attached to the (prohibition) wing of the Excise Department, said: “This is the fourth in the series of such seizures our department has effected recently.
All the four times we found the trail of scotch bottles leading back to the duty-free shops in the airport. The previous haul was a large consignment from the Dharavi
tenement owned by a police officer attached to the Sahar airport police station.”
He added: “The two made use of the vehicles belonging to the department without the permission of superiors.”
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