Gold smuggling, Hawala and more: Vigilance all set to lock customs

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The vigilance department is making moves to carry out inspections inside the airport to prevent gold smuggling, hawala and benami transactions involving customs officials.

Vigilance chief Yogesh Gupta has asked the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security to grant passes to the vigilance officials for this purpose. Vigilance found that a cabal of customs officials are actively involved in gold smuggling at airports. In the Karipur gold smuggling case, vigilance raids were conducted at nine places including customs offices and quarters in Kerala, Haryana and Punjab.

Kozhikode and Kochi customs quarters and offices were inspected. Documents and digital evidence were seized in the raids conducted with the warrant of the Vigilance Court and with the cooperation of the Haryana and Punjab police. Chief Customs Commissioner Manoj Arora had written to DGP Sheikh Darvesh Saheb expressing his displeasure at these actions. Yogesh Gupta told 'Kerala Kaumudi' that he has not seen the letter and will continue legal action against the customs officials.

Gupta said corruption cases have also been registered against officers of CISF, RPF, Central Banks, Labor and GST. CBI would have caught the corruption of the customs officials but Kerala withdrew the general permission given to the CBI to prosecute cases, forcing the central agency to seek the government's approval for each case.

Even after catching customs officials red-handed, CBI did not get permission to file a case in Karipur. With this, the CBI ended the inspection at the airports. Corruption cases against central officials were usually investigated by the CBI or central agencies. In August 2023, the High Court ordered that the Vigilance also has the power to file a case against them and issue a charge sheet. The High Court had clarified that investigation of corruption committed by central employees in the state would also come under the purview of vigilance.