Striking gold!

At the airports across India, all attention of the customs and security is on the passengers, checking for people carrying symptoms of Covid-19. Thus no one is really looking at the bags and opportunists, rather, the gold smugglers are making merry, even in these troubled times.

Custom officials at Mumbai airport agree that checking of bags coming in has become slack and this, they say is leading to smuggling of gold once again, Earlier, bags were screened thoroughly, but now the checks are random.

Gold as such is currently quoted at a discount to even the imported price and if you go for “unofficial” gold, it is even more cheaper. This, according to the Hindu calendar is an inauspicious time to buy gold and that, plus the virus explains the price fall. But the smugglers, like is doing bottom picking in stocks, are smuggling now when the security is slack to make merry when things become normal.