Customs transferred 34 Mumbai airport officials over Bribery Cases

The Mumbai airport’s principal commissioner of customs issued orders on Thursday for the transfer of 34 officers and four staff employees.

According to insiders, the reshuffling was done to address the issue of bribery, as a few policemen were previously caught collecting bribes using the Paytm wallet.

For example, on February 11, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Alok Kumar, a superintendent of Customs, for reportedly receiving Rs 30,000 from a passenger who arrived with a gold necklace worth Rs 1.5 lakh.

Kumar “threatened” the passenger and forced him to use a payment wallet to pay.

Shyam Sunder Gupta, another Customs superintendent, searched a passenger on the same day, February 11. He allegedly requested duty from the passenger on his iPhone, which he had been using for the past eight months, after discovering nothing dutiable.

Gupta demanded that the passenger pay Rs.28,000 in Customs tax or Rs.7000 in bribe. The bribe was paid to Gupta by the passenger.

In another case, Customs Inspector Rinku Sanga detained a woman traveller from a Gulf country who was carrying an iPhone 14 Pro-Max and jewellery. The woman was also allegedly forced to pay a bribe of Rs.5,000 into a loader’s digital wallet. Customs havaldar Santosh Wadekar was implicated in both crimes and is listed in the CBI FIR.

The CBI FIR revealed that an examination of the two airport loaders’ wallet accounts revealed a total amount of Rs 47 lakh from various people over the course of a year. The investigation agency believes it was obtained through bribery. The CBI is also looking into a few other personnel and loaders.

In the meanwhile, transferring officers and staff must report to their respective cadre controlling authority.