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CBI busts customs racket
at Lucknow airport

The Central Bureau of Investigation Monday busted a major bribery racket at the Lucknow airport involving customs officials, ten of whom were caught red-handed.

The CBI sleuths seized Rs 2,50,000 in unaccounted foreign currency and arrested the manager of the Allahabad Bank's airport branch, which mainly deals in foreign exchange.

Superintendent of Police (CBI) Kiran Jadhav, who led the raiding team, said the currency notes seized from the customs officials included 21,150 Saudi Riyals (Rs 2,11,000), 2000 Iranian Riyals (Rs 40,000), a fake $ 100 bill and Rs 18,000.

Jadhav said he has enough evidence to prove that the customs superintendent on duty was hand-in-glove with the other nine officials manning customs counters at the time of the raid.

The CBI team laid a trap at the airport early on Monday morning when the only international flight (from Sharjah) operating from Lucknow arrives.

Jadhav said Customs Superintendent U P Bhartiya, who was manning the main counter, was seen putting away cash accepted from passengers in a green plastic bag. "If any passenger resisted, he was threatened of penalty at 300 per cent -- five times that of the peak duty of 60 per cent on goods for personal use."

The flight was carrying 131passengers. One passenger, who was forced to cough up 100 Saudi Riyals, said: "Corruption is rampant at all international airports in the country and everyone seemed to have turned a blind eye to it...it is remarkable that the CBI took the initiative."

The customs officials involved in the racket have been identified as: Anil Srivastava, H K Khandelwal, N S Rawat, Sudha Singh (all assistant customs officers), constables Sushil Kumar and Raj Kumar and S S Pandey, driver of the assistant commissioner of customs.

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