KOCHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged 25 Customs Department officials with conspiracy and abuse of official position for monetary gain.
The charge sheet was filed in a case registered in connection with the CBI’s monitoring of their activities through closed circuit television sets at the Cochin International Airport here in October 2006 and the investigations that followed.
Last year, 36 Customs officials were booked in a raid at the Calicut International Airport near the northern Kerala city of Kozhikode after the CBI unearthed cash and imported goods that they received as bribes.
The CBI received several complaints of the officials extorting money and goods mainly from the semi-literate workers arriving from the Gulf on vacation. The CBI filed the charges before the Special CBI Court here along with the CCTV clippings that they shot secretly during two weeks of monitoring their movements.
The CBI team had also raided the homes and properties of 11 Air Customs and Air Intelligence officials and confiscated huge stashes of currencies and electronic goods.
According to the victims, the fleecing of passengers from the Gulf at Kerala airports has been going on for a long time and that the entire customs network was involved in the large-scale corruption and bribery. Apparently, each wing and each rank receives their share of the spoils.
