The DRI had a highly active week, successfully busting three wildlife trafficking operations in Maharashtra and a significant gold and diamond smuggling racket at Mumbai airport. The wildlife seizures included elephant ivory, a leopard skin, live pangolins, and tiger bones and canines, resulting in eleven arrests. Simultaneously, the Mumbai airport operation led to the confiscation of 8.564 kilograms of foreign-origin gold and over 1,100 carats of diamonds, with eight individuals taken into custody.

The DRI had a highly active week, successfully busting three wildlife trafficking operations in Maharashtra and a significant gold and diamond smuggling racket at Mumbai airport. The wildlife seizures included elephant ivory, a leopard skin, live pangolins, and tiger bones and canines, resulting in eleven arrests. Simultaneously, the Mumbai airport operation led to the confiscation of 8.564 kilograms of foreign-origin gold and over 1,100 carats of diamonds, with eight individuals taken into custody.

The DRI had a highly active week, successfully busting three wildlife trafficking operations in Maharashtra and a significant gold and diamond smuggling racket at Mumbai airport. The wildlife seizures included elephant ivory, a leopard skin, live pangolins, and tiger bones and canines, resulting in eleven arrests. Simultaneously, the Mumbai airport operation led to the confiscation of 8.564 kilograms of foreign-origin gold and over 1,100 carats of diamonds, with eight individuals taken into custody.

It seems to have been quite the adventurous week for the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). The enforcement agency under the Ministry of Finance dismantled three separate wildlife-trafficking operations in Maharashtra and busted a two-way gold-and-diamond smuggling racket at Mumbai airport.

DRI seized elephant ivory, a leopard skin, live pangolins, tiger bones and canines, 8.564 kilograms of foreign-origin gold and more than 1,100 carats of diamonds, arresting 19 people across all these cases.

Wildlife crackdown in Maharashtra

In three intelligence-led operations, DRI officers seized four elephant ivory articles, including intricately carved pieces, one leopard skin, two live pangolins, 3kg of tiger bones and two tiger canines. They also apprehended 11 persons in the operation.

The first one targeted the illegal sale of four elephant tusks. Acting on specific intelligence, officers ran a decoy operation that led to the recovery of the ivory articles and the arrest of three people under Section 49B of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The three arrested were handed over to the local forest range officer for further action.

In a second operation on September 29, DRI officers intercepted two people near Purada village in Gondia district who were suspected of trying to sell a leopard skin after killing the animal.

The leopard, listed under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, was seized along with the two suspects, who were later handed over to the forest range officer of Deoria Range, Gondia.

The largest operation, however, happened at the start of the week—on September 26–27—in the Allapalli forest area of Maharashtra. This joint op with the Forest Department, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), Mumbai, and the USTR Anti-Poaching Unit, led to the recovery of one live adult pangolin, one live baby pangolin, 3kg of tiger bones and two tiger canines.

Gold-diamond syndicate busted at Mumbai airport

On September 30, DRI officers at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport uncovered a two-way racket involving an airport staff member, six transit passengers and an Indian outbound passenger. DRI acted on the op on specific intelligence, resulting in eight arrests. Officers intercepted the airport staff member in the departure area as he was handing over diamonds to an Indian passenger travelling to Dubai for illicit export.

During his personal search, the staff member was found carrying three capsules containing foreign-origin gold dust in wax form, which had been handed over to him by a transit passenger.

They were interrogated, and this revealed that five more transit passengers arriving on different flights from Dubai, Doha, Jeddah and Fujairah were scheduled to deliver smuggled gold to the same staff member.

The enforcement agency then intercepted all five passengers as they handed over gold capsules in the transit area. This op, in total, seized 23 capsules containing 24-carat foreign-origin gold dust in wax form, weighing 8.564kg gross and valued at approximately ₹12.64 crore. Adding to that were the 1,168.97 carats of diamonds—132.17 carats natural and 1,036.80 carats lab-grownvalued at approximately ₹1.09 crore.

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