Smuggling of Chinese drones soaring in TN

200 Drones Seized in One Year in Chennai

- SIDDHARTH PRABHAKAR @ Chennai

GOLD, wildlife, and narcotics have been the usual contrabands seized by Chennai Customs, but, of late, smuggling of Chinese drones into Tamil Nadu from Southeast Asian nations and Gulf countries through airports and seaports is on the rise. This is due to the soaring demand for the equipment in the grey market, sources said.

According to a 2022 February notification of the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, import of drones is completely banned in fully assembled Completely Built-up (CBU) form, fully disassembled Completely Knocked Down (CKD) form, or partially assembled Semi Knocked Down (SKD) form, barring exceptions provided for Research and Development, Defence and security purposes.

Sources say that in the last financial year, Chennai Air Customs has seized at least 200 Chinese-made drones worth more than ₹2 crore from passengers who arrived by air from Singapore, Malaysia and UAE. Data sourced through RTI shows that this is a significant increase from the 67 drones seized in 2019-20 and 30 in 2023-24.