NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked Customs officers to be on high alert to curb smuggling of drugs and bring the cases to their logical conclusion at the earliest.
Addressing the Customs officers, Sitharaman said maximum alertness is required to curb the menace of drug smuggling and using intelligence inputs would be critical towards this.
"If gold (smuggling) is going to hurt the economy, drugs will hurt generations. We cannot afford it. So I would want you all to be on high alert in case of drug seizure and follow it up," Sitharaman said.
Asking Customs officers to ensure timely prosecution, she said they should inform the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
"We need it to bring it to logical conclusion at the earliest in each of the cases," she said.
In the current year till November, enforcement agencies have seized 3,017 kgs of heroin, 2,267 kgs hashish, 725 kgs ATS (Amphetamine type Stimulants) and 122 kgs of cocaine.
Addressing tax officers on the occasion of 60 years of Customs Act, the minister also asked the CBIC to chart out plans for the next 25 years on how to scale up enforcement and also give ideas to the world to follow.
Sitharaman said the Customs department needs to use a 'cocktail' of technology tools, like dark net, artificial intelligence, web3 and metaverse.
She also said the Customs officers are now equipped to handle all situations and deal with speedily changing methods of smuggling.
"If there are people coming to pay with cryptocurrency... how is he (Customs officer) going to respond? Is it going to be the 1960s India where he says no don't come near me, go away. Or is it going to be the 2020s India where you found a way to sort it out but of course didn't do anything violative of that," she said.
In his address, CBIC Chairman Vivek Johri said one new challenge that is coming before the Customs officers is how to deal with payments made in cryptocurrency.
"We had a case recently where payment of some smuggled goods was made partly by way of crypto and this is the first time Customs has seized cryptocurrency. Because proceeds of something which is illegally imported is liable to seizure," Johri said.
