The Custom authorities acting on a tip of monitored the moments of a woman passenger who flew down from Hong Kong by the Dragon Airways enroute to Delhi, on Thursday. As she was coming out of the green channel she was taken for questioning and investigation. In her possession she had hidden 31,520 (2GB) micro-secure digital cards bearing the “Made in Taiwan” tag.  The clever lady had packed the cards in 53 polythene pouches and concealed them in her stockings, hidden under her salwar suit.

Rosy Bhatia had no known criminal history, on records. But the intelligence sleuths believe otherwise. Because she had earlier made, ten short trips to the Hong Kong, in guise of buying textile material. The sleuths also feel that there could be network acting in this area, as the demand for these cards was immense in the country as they attract nearly 30-40 per cent duty.

The AIU team had received specific intelligence from their Delhi counterparts that she would be smuggling in memory cards into the country.  “It was not viable to wait until she reached Delhi although she had an early morning flight to Delhi today (Thursday). There were chances of her disposing the smuggled articles in Bangalore, making it difficult to trace,” the official explained.

Rosy Bhatia was produced before a local court here and was granted conditional bail.
Stating that there is a larger network operating in the country, officials said last month a passenger was caught at Kolkata airport, travelling from the same country and smuggling the same good, using the same modus operandi. Also, a similar consignment was seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence here about six weeks ago, officials said.