DNA

Mumbai, Oct 16: Seventy-four plastic packets, stuffed with gold ornaments and diamonds worth Rs4.54 crore, which had gone missing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport after being offloaded from a Thai Airways plane on Thursday night, were recovered by police on Monday October 15 from a gutter near the Air India canteen.

Earlier on Saturday October 13, police had arrested Gerald D’Costa, 29, Ramesh Rajak, 40, and Prakash Shinde, 29. The three Air India handlers had unloaded Thai Airways cargo on Thursday night. D’Costa, Rajak and Shinde, all residents of Nallasopara, have been remanded in police custody till October 19.

The incident has exposed a flaw in the airport security system - improper screening of lower level staff. “These people (the three arrested persons) and lower-level staff employed at the airport are well-acquainted with the premises and its functioning.

Thorough screening of these people is a must,” said KL Prasad, JCP (Law & Order).

Sahar police interrogated 23 international airport staff, including Air India security personnel, loaders, supervisors and other ground crew. It led to the cops zeroing in on the three loaders on Saturday.

Prasad said, “Few paid attention when the container was offloaded. The trio had no problem removing the packets from it. But as they found it difficult to smuggle 74 packets out of the airport, they dropped them in the gutter, from where they could be retrieved later in phases. They told police the exact location of the gutter, and the valuables were recovered.”

Prasad praised the prompt action taken to nab the culprits. He gifted a gold-plated pen to Additional Commissioner of Police (west region) Archana Tyagi for the successful detection of the case.