Over 80 kg gold missing from Custom's Vault

NEW DELHI:  The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has sought a report from the Customs over mysterious disappearance of gold from its vaults at international airport here and directed it to carry out a detailed stock taking exercise at all its warehouses to check further loss.

Official sources said today that the anti-corruption watchdog took cognisance of media reports and sought the report on the matter.

The CVC has asked the Customs department to re-check the gold kept in all the vaults to ensure there is no foul play, they said.

Gold worth at least Rs 25 crore seized from smugglers has mysteriously disappeared from customs vaults at Indira Gandhi International Airport here. The Finance Ministry has already recommended CBI probe into the matter, the sources said.

A huge haul of over 80 kg gold, both in form of bullion and jewellery, has gone missing from the customs warehouse. In all the cases, it was replaced with non-precious yellow- coloured metal, they said.

The seized gold was valued at Rs 25 crore as per current market rates, the sources said.

The cases of disappearance of gold had earlier been reported to Delhi Police. As the pilferage continued, the Finance Ministry decided to recommend a CBI probe following approval of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, they said.

The CBI has been asked to register a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) into the matter and find how the gold was replaced with the non-precious metal inside the heavily guarded vault, the sources said.

The vigilance wing of the Finance Ministry is also looking into the suspected role of customs officials, they said.

Earlier, replying to an RTI query filed by PTI, the Delhi Customs had said over 23 kg of gold worth more than Rs six crore had gone missing from its warehouse.

In June last year, the customs officials had lodged an FIR in connection with the disappearance of 11 kg of gold worth Rs 2.92 crore from its vault. The gold was seized in five incidents from passengers at the international airport.

Similar cases were also reported to the Delhi Police on January 16, 20, April 30 and December 23, 2014 in which gold worth lakhs of rupees was replaced by a yellow-coloured metal.

An FIR was registered in June this year by Delhi Police on the complaint of customs officials who said two gold chains and bangles, together weighing 298 gm, valued at about Rs 8.83 lakh, were replaced with yellow-coloured non-precious metal. (AGENCIES)