ISLAMABAD: The man arriving at Kannur International Airport in Kerala in southern India caught the attention of customs officials right away.
A quick search of his clothes revealed why — in between the two stitched-together pairs of jeans he was wearing -- was a thin layer of gold dust that had been made into a paste and applied like paint to the cloth. In all, the man was carrying some 302 grams of gold in his pants worth about $20,000, authorities said, reported foreign media.
For customs officials in a country that has emerged as one of the biggest gold smuggling centers in the world, this was a pretty normal day. In 2020, Indian officials say they seized $185 million worth of gold GC00, -0.25% being smuggled into the country. But that’s a drop in the bucket; experts estimate that around one-fifth of the 1,000 tons of gold that entered India last year arrived illegally. That’s equal to about $11 billion. “This puts India not only at the heart of the world’s gold manufacturing sector, but also at the heart of an illicit supply chain with tentacles that extend around the globe.” The reason is simple: India is one of the largest consumers of gold in the world but isn’t even in the top 50 in terms of production. High tariffs on gold imports have resulted in a booming smuggling industry, officials say. “Needless to say, the increase in the incidence of duty on imported gold has incentivised the smuggling of the yellow metal,” India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence wrote in its annual report on smuggling last year. One of the most frequent ways of getting the gold into the country is on the bodies of air passengers flying in from the United Arab Emirates, which is one of the world’s largest gold hubs, officials say. Smugglers typically enlist Indian guest workers in the Middle East to carry the contraband home stashed in a variety of ways. Customs officials say they often find the swag packed in capsules inserted in a passenger’s rectum. But they also have found gold hidden under elaborate wigs, woven into the stitching of suitcases or affixed to feet and underwear. In one case last year, 30 kilograms of gold worth more than $2 million was found in a diplomatic courier bag, sparking a political scandal.