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Border guardians bemoan lack of tools to halt gold gangs
In the first three months of this year, 31.5 kilograms of gold, estimated to be worth more than Rs 200 million, was nabbed on four occasions being smuggled out of the country off Kalpitiya by the Sri Lanka Navy.
Meanwhile, 10.9 kilos of gold being smuggled in was detected by the Customs at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA).
In April last year, the government introduced a levy of 15% on gold imports when a record increase in gold imports raised concerns about foreign exchange losses and possible smuggling of gold to India.
In the first three months of 2018, Sri Lanka imported 8,000 kilograms of gold worth over US$55 million. In 2017, according to the Central Bank, a record US$649 million worth gold was imported.
Several law enforcement agencies are concerned about the rise in gold smuggling.
A senior police officer told the Sunday Times that there are suspicions that the gold being smuggled out of Sri Lanka is being used to pay for illegal narcotics smuggled across the Palk Strait.
“We suspect there are a few powerful people behind the smuggling, but it is too early to comment,” he said.
Last year, 50.2 kilograms of gold on its way to India by boat was intercepted by the Sri Lanka Navy.
More coastal patrols around Mannar and in the north by the navy and surveillance by the police may have forced smugglers to shift their routes south, said Lt Cmdr Sooriyabandara, the navy spokesman.
A customs officer who did not want to be named, pointed out that gold is smuggled in through BIA.
“Customs officers at the airport use their intuition, based on years of experience to identify high risk passengers who may be gold or drug couriers,” he said.
He said neither customs, nor other law enforcement agencies have several key technologies and systems their counterparts use in other countries.
The customs is yet to get access to the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS), a system which gives pre-arrival and departure manifest data of all passengers and crew.
The APIS is considered to be a vital tool in screening passengers for revenue and national security risks. It is a proven system in use around the world.
A second system, the Passenger Name Record (PNR), which provides a passenger’s travel history, including information such as the name of the passenger, travel dates, itineraries, seats, baggage, contact details and means of payment, is also still not accessible to customs at the airport.
According to the customs source, only the immigration and emigration department has access.
“We should have had access to these systems some time ago, however there are delays and we are missing out on critical information to get our job done,” he claimed. “We know the behavioural pattern of revenue risk passengers who are most likely to smuggle — may it be gold, drugs, foreign currency or any prohibited, or controlled item. We have information on passengers before arrival and we can flag ones who fit certain profiles, or have a history in illegal activity and narrow down the number of individuals we need to target,” he said.
Systems such as APIS and PNR will allow customs and other law enforcement agencies to contain potential smugglers.
There are no facial recognition technologies and networked CCTV surveillance of the arrival, departure and baggage handling zones, he said.
The customs does not have dogs trained in drug and contraband detection.
Officers do not have portable handheld narcotics analysers.
The detection in December by the Police Narcotics Bureau of 278 kilos of heroin in 13 travel bags at a Dehiwala safe house used by a young Bangladeshi woman and drug traffickers from that country, points to frequent movement of drugs via the airport. The Bangladeshi woman had been visiting Sri Lanka on at least 10 occasions since 2007, police suspect.
Faced with such unprecedented hauls of gold and narcotics, customs staffers at the frontlines of Sri Lanka’s borders are handicapped without advanced equipment.