International gold smuggling racket busted

New Delhi: The Railway unit of Delhi Police on Thursday busted an international gold smuggling racket with the arrest of an accused who was carrying internationally marked gold bars worth over Rs 3 crore in cloth pouches stitched inside the jacket of the accused. Pravin Kumar Ambalal Khandelwal, 37, a resident of West Mumbai who had travelled from Kolkata to New Delhi in the Howrah Rajdhani Express train, was arrested by the staff of Railway unit from the New Delhi Railway station while he was on his way to deliver a consignment of 6.292 kg gold bars worth Rs 3.25 crore to his client in New Delhi. According to DCP, Railway, Harendra Singh, who spoke to The Sunday Guardian, a patrolling team consisting of SHO and NDRS Inspector Satish Rana, Assistant Sub Inspector Parmod, Head Constable Satyajeet and Jaiveer and Constable Vineet and Rahul of New Delhi Railway Station police station, who were deployed at the at New Delhi Railway Station to keep surveillance on the passengers and maintain law and order, noticed the suspicious movement of a passenger who had arrived from Kolkata in the Howrah-Rajdhani Express and stopped him for questioning. When the police team was not able to get a satisfactory answer, a preliminary enquiry conducted found him in possession of gold bars. Custom officers were called on the spot and it was found that he was carrying gold bars in cloth pouches made in the inner jacket and the cloth belt. The confiscated gold had the marking of IPMR, Gulf Gold Refinery and Valcambi Suisee (Switzerland). “The accused had received the gold from his accomplice in Kolkata and had boarded the train from Asansol, West Bengal. He had to further go to Mumbai to deliver the gold to the jewellers. To avoid detection at the airports, the accused used train as the mode of transport to avoid metal detectors. But the accused ran out of luck and what metal detectors could not do, the sharp vigil eyes of the police personnel did. Brother of the accused has also been in jewellery business having area of operations in Delhi and Mumbai,” DCP Singh told this newspaper.
The Customs department, which currently has the custody of the accused, is investigating the matter to unearth the route as to how the gold was smuggled from the Gulf and Switzerland into India and who were the other persons involved in this network. DCP Singh also said that the Delhi Police was keeping constant vigil at the railway stations to detect any such suspicious movement. Explaining how his team works on keeping tabs on such persons, he said, “Our men and women are trained to closely study the movement of people and be alert for suspicious movement. Every day, thousands of people travel by the railways and only sharp and vigil eyes like what we saw in this case are able to detect such cases. For example, anyone who is carrying banned or suspicious items with them would be nervous and their body language would be different. In this case, our men observed that this man (Pravin) was showing signs of anxiety and was avoiding the route in which police personnel were deployed. This created the suspicion and he was stopped for questioning.”