Does the increase in gold smuggling in India and Malabar Gold have any connection? A few days ago, DRI raided the jeweller’s main office after one smuggler confessed of selling the yellow metal to Malabar Gold

Malabar Gold and Diamonds, the rapidly expanding jewellery chain from Kerala was raided by officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at Kozhikode. According to a report from The Hindu, Malabar Gold's main office was raided following a statement given by one of the accused involved in the smuggling of gold from Gulf that he had sold gold to the jewellery group.

MP Ahammed, chairman of Malabar group of companies, later clarified with the newspaper that the DRI team had examined in detail gold stock and other related documents at its supply chain management office.

As per the news report, DRI's deputy director BG Krishnan conducted the search at Malabar Gold.  However, “no incriminating things or documents were recovered,” according to the ‘mahazar’ prepared by K Salil, intelligence officer, DRI, Kozhikode. A copy of the ‘mahazar’ is in possession of The Hindu, the report says.

Interestingly, just last month, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) initiated steps to interrogate John Joseph, deputy director-general of DRI, in the Nedumbassery gold-smuggling case. The CBI, after recording statements of TK Fayaz, a known gold smuggler, C Madhavan, deputy commissioner of Customs and Anil Kumar, assistant commissioner at Customs, decided to go forward with the interrogation of John Joseph.

According to a report from Tehelka, the 37-year old Fayaz who was arrested for smuggling gold, had links with leading politicians, celebrities, police and customs officials of Kerala. Quoting customs officials, the report says, that Mustafa, a non-resident Indian (NRI) businessman based in Dubai, and Fayaz had smuggled 42kg of gold worth Rs12 crore during the last two months through the Kochi airport using women carriers.

After his arrest, Fayaz confessed that several customs and police officials had facilitated his smuggling activities. The CBI has registered cases against S Madhavan, Sunil Kumar and Soni, an inspector, for aiding smuggling, the report says. However, this is not the only case related with gold smuggling in India.

On Sunday, the Customs department arrested 48-member group of Sri Lankans who tried to smugly 10kgs of gold through Kochi airport. Twenty-eight out of the 42 detainees are women, and they had hid the gold ornaments, weighing 300 to 600gms, inside their body.

According to a report from New Indian Express, the (Customs) officials now suspect that Dubai based organisations are using the Colombo route to get gold in Kerala because of high alert at Kochi and Kozhikode airports over gold smuggling from gulf countries. “The air intelligence wing suspect a Kerala connection to these incidents as the smugglers would not be able to find enough buyers at Nedumbassery or in Chennai. The officials said they also suspect the presence of a group inside the airport that aids the illegal transport of gold,” the report says.