Gold smuggling seems to have its own cycle, says Sitharaman

Referring to the ‘Smuggling in India Report’ for 2021-22, she said two bar charts that showed gold imports, and gold smuggling, respectively, showed “some kind of relationship”.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said smuggling of gold “seems to have its own cycle” irrespective of high or low customs duty while releasing the latest report on smuggling that showed Myanmar becoming the main transit corridor and China as the origin country for gold smuggling

“If in our country, 800 kg [of smuggled gold] have been detected on an average, per year, I’m sure this is an elephant in the room. Can we do lot more data-based, artificial intelligence-based, better mapping of… cycle of gold smuggling into India,” she said at the 65th Founding Day celebrations of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). She also released the ‘Smuggling in India Report’ for 2021-22.

Referring to the report, she said two bar charts that showed gold imports, and gold smuggling, respectively, showed “some kind of relationship”.

“I don’t know whether there is a tendency or cyclic impact… of very high imports of gold… just before and after… higher detection of smuggling [of gold],” she elaborated, asking DRI officials to study the trend and use the data to stop such activities.