Thiruvananthapuram: CBI investigating the smuggling of foreign liquor into the local market using the travel details of international passengers without their consent raided homes of director of Plus Max, Pragadish Kumar, customs superintendent Luke K. George and Kiran Dev, an employee of Plus Max on Monday.
The allegation was that the Customs officers and Airport Authority of India (AAI) staff helped the duty-free shop employees to collect passport numbers of flyers coming for shopping and used them for selling liquor at exorbitant rates to outsiders.
It was reportedly found that details of 13,000 international travellers were compromised for purchases from the shop run by a private company, Plus Max, from September 2017 to April 2018.
There were also security implications of traveller data leak. Another allegation was of tax evasion estimated at over Rs 6 crore.
There were also speculations that Plus Max had a connection with a prominent political party in Tamil Nadu and allegations of irregularities in awarding the contract to the company.
