Director General Navraj Dhungana said that about 80 to 100 kg of gold was recovered from Sinamangal during the operation carried out on the basis of a special information by the Revenue Investigation Department on Wednesday. "This may be the gold of the greatest value recovered in Nepal so far," he told Online News.
According to Tribhuvan International Airport sources, the seized gold arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday's Cathay Pacific flight. The information that the gold brought hidden inside the brake shoes of motorcycles and scooters passed the customs inspection on Wednesday and was cut off at 2 pm reached the Revenue Investigation Department. After that, a large amount of gold was recovered in the operation carried out by the department.
"Not all recovered gold has been weighed yet, we are investigating", says Dhungana. It is suspected that the gold from Hong Kong is being smuggled to India.
The customs department and the airport customs office have shown ignorance about the gold that passed the customs check and reached Sinamangal. Director General of the department Shobhakant Paudel said that he had no information about the gold seized by customs.
Arun Pokharel, Chief Customs Administrator of Airport Customs Office, is currently on leave. In his absence, Narada Gautam has taken over the responsibility of customs.
The changing style of gold smuggling
In the year 2074, a group led by Chudamani Upreti 'Gore' lost 33 kg of gold brought from UAE on 9 January 2074. The investigation took a serious turn after the porter Sanam Shakya was killed during the search.
A high-level committee formed for investigation concluded that Gore's group had smuggled nearly 38 quintals of gold in four years. During this case, there was a case against the police officers, customs staff and a large racket in smuggling. Since then no gold has been recovered in Nepal.
During the last five years, the rate of gold recovery has decreased sharply, during the operation conducted by the Revenue Investigation Department, almost 100 kg of gold was recovered.
Every operation related to gold conducted by the Nepal Police became controversial and even the amount of money was reduced. In the meantime, the gang also changed the style of smuggling. It was seen that various materials were being smuggled with gold coating. Small amounts of gold brought in semi-solid form were being seized.
On January 8, 2079, the Tribhuvan International Airport Customs Office seized 19 kg of gold from a Sudanese citizen during the inspection. This was the largest amount of gold seized by the customs at the airport. For further investigation, the customs handed over the Sudanese national who was arrested with the gold to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CIB).
Later, 101 kg of gold was recovered from Nepal during the operation 'Golden Down' conducted by the Revenue Investigation Department in India for three days from February 7. It indicated that gold was being smuggled from Nepal in a new way. However, the police in Nepal did not show proactivity for the investigation.
Although the Valley Crime Investigation Office, Baneshwar studied it, there was no success. When gold from Nepal started being seized in India, the revenue and security officials there also started showing interest.
According to the annual report of the Department of Revenue Research (DRI) of India for the financial year 2021/22, India used to have high levels of gold smuggling by air. However, due to the vigilance of the law enforcement agencies, smugglers are using new methods to smuggle gold, according to the report.
"After increasing the surveillance at the international airport, gold has started coming by land," the report says, "gold is coming from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar in the northeastern region." The conclusion of DRI officials was that the amount of gold coming from Nepal has been increasing recently.
"The demand for gold is always increasing, as long as the demand continues to increase, gold smuggling will not stop until then," says Basant Bahadur Lama, a member of the high-level committee formed to investigate gold smuggling in 2075, "only the style of smuggling will continue to change."
The rate of gold recovery has decreased sharply since 5 years.
No significant amount of gold has been recovered in Nepal since the last five years. The police had been claiming that gold smuggling had stopped due to the operation launched after the 33 and a half kg gold case.
However, according to the experts, due to various reasons, there was a decrease in the activity of the police, and the amount of gold recovered decreased.
According to the data of Police Head Office, Naxal, the police seized 200 kg of gold in the financial year 2074/75, since then 51 in the financial year 2075/76, 30 in the financial year 2076/77, 32 in the financial year 2077/78, 23 in the financial year 2078/79 and 23 in the financial year 2079. By February 1980, a total of 141 kg of gold had been recovered, 5 kg in 5 years.
Even the gold seized in this way was not caught with great consequence. These are the details of the gold brought by laborers from abroad.
'Gold cannot be caught without information, for this, the investment and effort of the police is equally important', former AIG of Nepal Police Rajendrasingh Bhandarika says, 'Non-catch of gold does not mean that there is no smuggling, it was not.'
