Karipur: A staff of the airport customs, Abdul Kareem, has been arrested following complaints regarding missing valuables from the check-in baggage of a passenger. Several passengers had reported their valuables going missing from the customs hall at Karipur airport. Many of them received their bags in an opened condition.
Last month a passenger from Perinthalmanna had lost a 9 gram gold chain. Shortly before this incident a passenger from Kozhikode lost his watch worth Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The luxury watch that went missing from the baggage of a Koduvalli resident was later found abandoned in the airport.
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Up till two years ago, the airport was the gateway for over 200 kilograms of smuggled gold. But ironically the customs never made a recovery and boasted off recoveries of abandoned gold consignments even while the DRI Customs Preventive nabbed several packages of gold worth crores from passengers who had cleared the customs clearance.
Valuables in the check-in baggage has been going missing for a while but had gone unreported since the passengers were worried of vindictive responses from the customs. CCTV cameras were placed at key locations in the customs hall and the green channel area but this didn’t help as the images were unhelpful. With the arrest of Abdul Kareem the authorities hope to be able to crack the rampant corruption in the airport customs.