Olga’s story gets messier

Olga’s story gets messier
Sunil Jain

A little over a month ago, this column detailed the story of Olga Kozireva, an Uzbek national currently serving time at the capital’s Tihar Jail for smuggling. The reason why her case is especially noteworthy is that, when she was arrested last September, walking out of the green channel with 27 rolls of Chinese silk worth about Rs 1.5 crore as her unaccompanied baggage, this was her 23rd trip to India in the last 3-4 months. In other words, here was a person coming in and out of the same airport every second day for the last 90 days, and that too with huge quantities of unaccompanied baggage, and none of the customs officials felt anything was out of the ordinary. The Olga case, to stress the point, shows how a very large number of customs officials almost openly allow smuggling gangs to evade duties clearly, from Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s point of view, if he’s able to break these chains, he’s on a major revenue-earning track.

The customs had tried to hush up the matter, but to Sinha’s credit, a probe was ordered as soon as he got to know of it. He got to hear of it when, while hearing Olga’s bail plea, Sessions Judge S.N. Dhingra said a CBI probe was needed as the customs officials appeared hand-in-glove with Olga.

Well, guess what? The probe report, by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) is in, and the government is dragging its feet on it. Indeed, if you go by the stories doing the rounds, it appears a lot of politicking is going on as well. The DRI report has recommended that 42 of the officers at the Indira Gandhi International Airport where Olga operated out of be suspended immediately. Till date, just around 19 have been served their papers in the case of one of the deputy commissioners, the suspension papers were served only after an online site reporting on taxes raised the issue (the original story, by the way, was first reported by The Indian Express).

And yes, for some curious reason, no action has been taken against the Additional Commissioner V.K. Singh Kushwaha, who was in charge of arrivals and departures at the airport. What about the commissioner in charge of the airport, isn’t he responsible as well? Certainly he is, though it is true that he doesn’t handle the day-to-day clearances. The present Commissioner, Sidharth Kak, it must be pointed out, took over in mid-2000 by which time Olga’s net was well-established and it is, in fact, to his credit that the nexus first got exposed.The story, sadly, gets even worse. For one, the commissioner at the airport before Kak was Vijaya Zutshi, the wife of the DRI chief who was in charge of the investigation! Now, no one’s saying that Zutshi’s organisation cannot conduct an inquiry just because his wife was heading the airport customs and there is no proof of her involvement but customs sources indicate that Olga’s comings and goings are not being investigated too far back into the past. Olga, incidentally, the records show, first began visiting India way back in 1997.

Again, this in itself does not constitute guilt, but other officials who are now in the DRI and are investigating the case, were also posted at the airport since 1997 when Olga began spreading her net. So surely their role needs to be investigated, if only to clear them of suspicion. Instead, these officers are part of the investigating team! These include, for instance, D.D. Ingty who’s Additional Director in the DRI he was Additional Commissioner at the airport from 1997 to 1999. It also speaks volumes of the level of revenue intelligence that A.K. Pandey, who is now in charge of vigilance at the Central Board of Excise and Customs, used to be the head of the DRI at the time the Olga case was happening!

In case you’re shocked already, hold on to your seats for it gets even more sickening. Now, it should be clear to even the most rookie officer that people who get caught smuggling are just ‘couriers’, and that the only way you can get to the top of the ring is to painstakingly catch other links and work your way up the courier chain. Well, guess what? The day Olga was arrested, an Afghan national (obviously the next link in the chain) came to pick her up, but he was simply allowed to disappear. How do we know this? Simple. The Afghan gentleman was picked up by the customs, was interrogated, and then allowed to leave! He’s now untraceable.

The airport records (please see them, Mr Sinha) also show that, on one occasion, Olga brought in bullet-proof jackets, and these were cleared on payment of a token import duty. Who these were for, and how they were cleared, remains a mystery. The same records also show that Olga visited both Lahore and Karachi on various occasions now, it’s true visiting Lahore and Karachi doesn’t make you an ISI agent (as some customs officers allege Olga was), but the fact that she had an Afghan connection as well does make the ISI-angle worth investigating. So why’s the case being swept, slowly and surely, under the carpet?