Pramesh S Jain
The security officials as CISF personnel at KIAL caught a 35 year old custom officer from chennai and his wife for carrying Rs 74.8 lakh unaccounted cash and expensive gadgets stuffed in suitcases.
The incident came to light during security check at around 9.30 am on Tuesday when Mohammed Irfan Ahmed claimed to be Superintendent of customs Chennai and his wife Mumtaz were standing in separate queue for security checks.
When his turn came,Mohammed Irfan Ahmed identified himself as customs superintendent officer of Chennai and tried to get his luggage inside bypassing security checks.
However the CISF security personnel insisted that as per protocol,the lugguage had to be checked and forced upon the bag to find bundles of currency notes worth RS.37 lakh.
Meanwhile Mumtaz who was standing in the ladies queue,rushed to washroom citing health reason.
However the security personnel followed her and found she had dumped cash worth around RS.10 lakhs in a bin.
The security personnel recovered the cash, recalled checked the other lugguage to find the currency notes stuffed in the baggage along with gold jewels and expensive electronic gadgets including expensive wrist watches, I phones and ear phones.
The officials took the duo into custody and alerted IT and ED officials for further investigation.
Inquiries revealed that the couple arrived from chennai and boarding the Lucknow flight.
The accused officer is serving custom department since 2009 and living in chennai.
The airport sources told reporters that carrying such a huge sum of money on a flight without prior permission was an offence.I am not sure of it but a passenger could carry upto Rs 2 lakh when travelling domestically a officer said.
Though he claimed that he was carrying the cash and proposes to buy the land, the source of the cash is yet to be ascertained.The officer has been handed over to the Enforcement Directorate for interrogation.
