Mangaluru, Jul 25: Sleuths of directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) on Tuesday nabbed an aircraft maintenance technician with Jet Airways at Mangalore International Airport (MIA) for his involvement in gold smuggling.
Specific intelligence developed by sleuths indicated gold was being smuggling through MIA wherein bars of foreign make concealed inside toilets of aircraft coming from Gulf countries on their arrival here was being extricated locally.
Sleuths accordingly zeroed in on Lalbin Jeen, maintenance staff with Jet Airways who allegedly connived with smugglers and would board the aircraft on pretext of maintenance work and retrieve the concealed gold bars with a plan to hand it over to agents of smugglers later at a pre-designated place in the city. Acting on thos intelligence, the sleuths mounted surveillance at the airport in the morning and discreetly kept a close watch on the movements Jeen.
The officers intercepted Jeen once he alighted from Jet Airways flight 9W 531 that had arrived from Dubai. During interrogation, Jeen confessed to his crime and produced two packets from the back pocket of his trousers that contained 5 tola bars of gold each.
Jeen admitted he retrieved the same from the rear toilet of the said aircraft just a few moments earlier and was supposed to hand over the smuggled gold to an agent at a mall in the city in the evening.
Vinayak Bhat, deputy director, DRI said Jeen's remuneration for this work was fixed at Rs 20,000. Sleuths seized the smuggled gold weighing 1166.5 gms with a market value of around Rs 34.41 lakh, he said adding gold is liable for confiscation for violation of provisions of the Customs Act, 1962. The accused was produced before the CJM who remanded him in to judicial custody. Further investigation is underway based on leads given by Jeen.
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