Five customs officials held for accepting bribe at airport

Chennai

Five senior customs officials have been arrested for allegedly accepting bribe from a passenger at the Tiruchirapalli International Airport.

Acting on a tip-off, CBI anti-corruption branch officials conducted a raid at the Tiruchirapalli International airport on the midnight of March 5 and seized bribe amount of Rs 2.94 lakh.

The five customs officials – Superintendents Sivaswamy, Ravikumar, Inspectors Dinesh Prajapati, Suresh Kumar, Avijit Chakraborthy were arrested for accepting bribe and the passenger Nagoor Meeran who offered the bribe was also held, CBI said in a statement.

Separate raids were conducted at the residences of the five accused in Kolkata, Jaipur, Haryana and unaccounted cash and documents were seized, it said.

The passenger had brought two hi-end LED Samsung television sets and offered to pay bribe to the officials requesting them not to collect duty for the sets.

Accepting the offer, customs officials levied duty on one television set but released the other set without collecting any duty, the statement said.

© Copyright PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of any PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.