Customs official held for extortion from smugglers in Kerala

Customs superintendent P Muniyappan was arrested on Thursday at the Kozhikode international airport in Kerala on charges of extorting money from gold smuggling rackets.

Indian and foreign currency notes worth around Rs 5 lakh, around 320-gram gold and costly gifts, were seized from him.

Police sources said that the customs official landed in the police net while the cops were tracking a couple of gold carriers. Two siblings from Kasaragod were intercepted by the police near the airport following suspicion of gold smuggling. Later, the two informed that a customs official seized the gold from them on arrival from abroad and demanded Rs 25,000 as a bribe for releasing it.