Operation Numkhor: Kochi Customs arrest five suspects in luxury vehicle smuggling racket from Assam and West Bengal

In a major breakthrough in Operation Numkhor – a nationwide crackdown on the large-scale smuggling of premium second-hand vehicles and forged registration rackets involving Motor Vehicle department (MVD) officials – the Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate, Kochi, has arrested five suspects, four from Assam and one from West Bengal.

Among those taken into custody, with the support of Shillong Customs, is Dipak Patowary, District Transport Officer (DTO), Bongaigaon, Assam. The other accused are Biswadip Das of West Bengal, and Ayub Ali, Mostafa Ahmed, alias Rinku, and Jalal Mandal, all from Assam.

Investigators suspect that the racket involving Mr. Patowary facilitated the illegal registration of nearly 460 smuggled vehicles using forged documents. These include foreign-made luxury cars and lorries, as well as Indian-made vehicles exported abroad and smuggled back into the country through Bhutan without payment of Customs duty. The Assam Police have also registered their arrests.

Mr. Das, believed to be one of the key masterminds, was apprehended near the India-Bhutan border in a coordinated operation on February 22. He was remanded to judicial custody and later brought to Kochi on transit remand for further investigation.

“The Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate, Kochi, alone has seized 49 such smuggled vehicles out of a potential list of 200 identified across Kerala. Tracking the history of each vehicle is an elaborate process, and seizing all of them will take time,” officials said.

Operation Numkhor has emerged as one of the most extensive crackdowns on vehicle smuggling and forged registrations, prompting other agencies, including the Central GST department, to initiate separate investigations. A recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), tabled in the Assam Assembly last month, revealed that 15,849 vehicles bearing identical chassis and engine numbers were registered across multiple north-eastern States, exposing the scale of the racket.

“Multiple rackets are involved in smuggling vehicles and securing illegal registrations using forged documents. We have so far identified two major networks — one based in Coimbatore and another in Assam. MVD officials are colluding with these rackets to tamper with the Parivahan website database,” Customs sources said.

The Kochi Commissionerate launched Operation Numkhor with Statewide raids on September 23, 2025, including searches at the residences of popular film actors such as Dulquer Salmaan and Prithviraj Sukumaran. On the first day alone, 39 vehicles were seized, followed by another 10 in the subsequent days.