Airport Ground Staff Owning Costly Phones Under Scanner

Perturbed by the multiple incidents of gold smuggling involving contract staff at Chennai International Airport, Customs authorities have planned to keep track of those employees who have high-end smartphones costing close to ₹1 lakh.

- Siddharth Prabhakar @Chennai

According to analyses by Customs, the contract staff earn salaries as low as ₹15,000-₹18,000 a month and hence affording costly smart phones could be an indicator of their collusion with gold smuggling syndicates. Sources said the decision was taken at a recent multi-agency review meeting at the airport hosted by Customs to discuss measures to curb gold smuggling.

Officials of the Income Tax department, who were part of the meeting, suggested that information on such individuals could be passed on to them to launch investigations of tax evasion against them.