Cigarette smuggling racket busted;21 passengers detained at Kerala's Karipur airport

In a joint operation,sleuths from the CBI, Customs and Department of RevenueIntelligence on Tuesday seized a huge volume of foreign brandcigarettes while it was being smuggled into the country fromthe Gulf and detained around 21 passengers at Karipur airporthere, sources said.

Officials have also detained a batch of officialsfrom the customs and other departments on the suspicion thatthey had links with the cigarette smugglers, they said.

Sources said the cigarettes' being smuggled caneasily be detected in scanning but such checking and recoverywere not carried out effectively.

The less number of seizures from the side ofofficials generated a suspicion about their involvement andbased on intelligence inputs, a joint operation was launchedto bust the syndicate.

Although the operation was aimed at thecigarette smuggling racket, the officials also investigatedthe gold smuggling through the airport, they said.

The central agencies' joint operation is stillon and the seizure list will be finalised later in the night,the sources added.PTI TGB BNWELCOME BNWELCOME