Ahmedabad police bust insider ring in 2.58 crore gold cargo theft

A 2.107-kilogram parcel of gold jewellery worth Rs 2.58 crore vanished inside an air cargo chain that was supposed to move seven sealed consignments from Ahmedabad to Bengaluru, and police say the breach began with insiders, not a break-in at a shop. Ahmedabad police arrested eight people in the case, which has become a warning about how vulnerable high-value gold can be once it leaves the counter and enters airport cargo handling.

The missing parcel was handed over around 2:15 am on April 18, 2026, at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, through Sequel Logistics Company for transport on Akasa Air. Police said the overall shipment weighed about 13 kilograms, but one parcel never arrived in Bengaluru. That failure triggered a complaint and a probe that used CCTV footage, technical surveillance and human intelligence to map what investigators described as an organised conspiracy.

Among those arrested were Salemohammad alias Salam Mohammad Amin Ansari, Kadlipbhai alias Bapu Jayantibhai Patel, Roshan Kumar Patel, Zaid Hasan Ansari, Sultan Sama, Ravikant Bagiya, Kiran Pawar and Shankar Vakshe. Police also said four more accused, including Jayesh Parmar, Rizwan Majidbhai, Farooq Sama and Yogesh Patil, remained absconding. Zaid Ansari, an airline security in-charge, and Roshan Patel, an Akasa Air cleaning in-charge, were named among the employees implicated, underscoring how cargo theft can be enabled from within the system it depends on.

Investigators say the theft was not a smash-and-grab but a planned rerouting of the parcel. The alleged method was to place the jewellery bag into the luggage of a passenger on the same flight, with Salemohammad reportedly posing as that passenger after a ticket was arranged in advance. Police said the gold was then taken back to Ahmedabad, melted into bars or smaller pieces, and sold through intermediaries to jewellers in Rajkot and Ahmedabad.

The recoveries so far, Rs 69.24 lakh in cash, gold bars and melted gold pieces worth Rs 1.02 crore, plus a silver biscuit, add up to Rs 1.72 crore. Even so, the case leaves a wider supply-chain wound. When gold moves by air, the safeguards that matter most are a sealed chain of custody, declared-value coverage that reflects the true worth of the cargo, and tamper-evident packaging that makes a diversion harder to hide. Without those controls, the cost lands not only on police work and insurance claims but also on delivery reliability and buyer confidence.

Akasa Air said it reported the discrepancy immediately, cooperated fully with investigators and terminated the services of two employees who were among the accused. Police believe the gang had tried a similar theft in March and may have planned earlier attempts before succeeding at Ahmedabad airport.