Western Rly busts Maharashtra-Gujarat 'silver jewellery' smuggling racket on Duronto Express

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The Western Railway recently discovered an alleged illegal transportation racket of silver jewellery. The jewellery was falsely labelled as 'imitation ornaments' in a bid to avoid taxes. A report in the IANS stated that the officials recently busted the racket and seized jewellery being transported through the Mumbai-Hapa Duronto Express.

The IANS report detailed that the scam was discovered by the Vigilance Department and Railway Protection Force and that they intercepted six huge boxes of silver jewellery worth Rs 1.34 crore.

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The report cited a statement by Western Railway Chief PRO Sumit Thakur saying that the consignment was unloaded at Mumbai Central on December 26. Reportedly, the shipment was being taken out of the railway premises unattended. The CPRO had said that the teams monitoring the unloading operations from the leased parcel compartment, however, found nothing amiss.

Reportedly, further examination revealed that some parcels had been relocated to the inward godown for delivery. The contents did not fit the declared description, which raised suspicions.

The IANS report then quoted Western Railway CPRO as saying that vigilance officers investigated the incident quickly, eventually intercepting the cargo at the truck-tempo loading area. The shipments, labelled as 'Imitation Jewellery' for a charge of Rs 1,347, were discovered to contain 240 kg of genuine silver pieces worth Rs 1.34 crore.

Following the discovery, authorities seized the entire package, filed a case at Mumbai Central, and initiated additional investigations in Hapa and Mumbai. The locations, which are approximately 815 km apart, are being investigated, the report added.

In another instance, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in Mumbai, based on a tip-off, seized cigarette cartons smuggled into the city. The cigarettes were worth Rs 5.77 crore approximately, DRI told ANI.

DRI official statement said, "Based on intelligence developed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Mumbai, a 40-feet refrigerated container that arrived at Jawaharlal Nehru Port was held at one of the Container Freight Stations (CFS) at Nhava Sheva. A thorough examination revealed that cigarette cartons were ingeniously concealed within cardboard boxes containing tamarind. The cigarette cartons had been placed inside the tamarind boxes and cleverly covered on all sides with tamarind such as to render the cigarette cartons indiscernible even upon opening the cardboard boxes. The smuggled cargo comprised 33,92,000 cigarette sticks with a market value of approximately Rs 5.77 crores."