A seemingly innocent souvenir shop inside Chennai airport has been unmasked as a front for a sophisticated gold smuggling operation. The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the customs department arrested nine people on Thursday, all suspected of involvement with an international gold smuggling syndicate.
Among the arrested are the shop owner, Sabir Ali, his employees, and two transit passengers.
Sabir Ali, who also runs a YouTube channel named ShoppingBoyz, allegedly used the shop to smuggle an astonishing 267 kg of gold, valued at Rs 167 crore, over just two months. The smuggling ring earned a commission of Rs 3 crore from this. Ali reportedly received Rs 70 lakh from a drug dealer based in the UAE to establish the shop in the airport’s departure lounge.
"Sabir Ali rented the shop paying a huge sum to Vidvedaa PRG, the third-party agency engaged by Airports Authority India (AAI), two months ago. He set up a souvenir shop as a front and employed seven youngsters to manage the shop," stated R Srinivasa Naik, Principal Commissioner of Customs at Chennai airport.
The unravelling of this operation began a few days ago when customs officers arrested one of Ali’s employees who was caught with 1 kg powdered gold. Initially believed to be an isolated incident, further investigation exposed a well-organised smuggling network involving the shop's workers.
These employees, exploiting their Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) identity cards, routinely bypassed security checks, facilitating the easy transfer of gold into the airport. They would then pass the gold to smugglers disguised as passengers.
"The workers have been trained to hide gold in powder form in their rectum to avoid detection by scanners. It is a well-oiled network and a well-executed plan," a customs official told Times of India.
Phone conversations intercepted by the AIU confirmed that the gang had smuggled 267 kg of gold, with the precious metal arriving from Gulf countries and Singapore. Authorities have launched a probe to determine how the smugglers obtained their BCAS identity cards, indicating potential deeper corruption within airport security frameworks.
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