Pune: Multiple recent seizures of high-end hydroponic weed at the city airport have seemingly prompted smugglers to try another trick to fox the authorities.On March 3, the air intelligence unit of Pune Customs recovered 745 packets of such weed concealed in one of the lavatories of an Air India Express aircraft, after the flight landed here from Bangkok. The flight (IX-241) had departed from Bangkok at 2.09pm IST and landed in Pune around 4.30pm. It is a daily one and popular at Pune airport. “The weed had been carefully packed into two food packets, which were then placed in the tissue cabinet of one of the lavatories on the aircraft. Once an international flights lands, it is carefully checked. This catch was based on intelligence inputs. There have been no arrests in the case so far and we are investigating,” a senior Pune Customs officer told TOI. The cost of the weed, which had been vacuum-packed into eight smaller packets, is estimated at Rs74.50 lakh in the illicit market. “There is a strong possibility that the carrier concealed the packets in the lavatory. Many flights, after completing their international leg, turn into domestic routes, where there is no interference of customs. It is possible that the plan was that once this flight turns domestic, another carrier would get into the aircraft posing as a flyer and secretly remove the packets from the lavatory as instructed. With no customs involved, the person would have easily marched out of the airport carrying the contraband, without any screening. However, we are checking all these angles and determining where the aircraft was flying next,” another Customs official said. An Air India Express spokesperson was contacted by TOI for comment, but a response was awaited on Wednesday evening till the time of going to print.Similar cases have come to the fore earlier as well, especially during a period when gold smuggling had spiked at Pune airport. In June 2024, Pune Customs had recovered gold weighing over 1kg in the form of a paste, hidden underneath the seat of a SpiceJet flight from Dubai. In Sept 2022, gold biscuits worth Rs61.7 lakh had been found in a pouch under a seat of a Dubai-Pune flight. In Oct 2016, 9kg of gold bars worth Rs2.8 crore were recovered from the lavatory of a SpiceJet aircraft after the flight landed here from Dubai. A Customs source told TOI, “In the past few months, smugglers operating out of Pune have shifted to smuggling of weed from Bangkok. There are two flights from Bangkok from Pune. With catches becoming frequent, they might be looking to change their modus operandi.”
