• The Chaudharys’ trip to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary turned sour even before it began when they discovered their cash and a handycam missing from their luggage shortly after checking into a Bangkok hotel.

• NRI couple Shreelina Ghosh and Kaustav Mukherjee, visiting the city after two years, found that cosmetics, chocolates and clothes were stolen from their registered bags.

These two are not isolated incidents. Complaints of cash and valuables going missing from the registered baggage of air passengers travelling to and from Calcutta are on the rise.

In both cases, the locks and security tapes of the baggage were intact.

“We were carrying Baht 14,200 (about Rs 18,500). In the hotel, we found the envelope in which the money was kept and even the currency conversion receipt, but the cash was gone,” said Suresh Chaudhary, a Burrabazar-based trader who reached Bangkok with his wife on July 1 on a Thai Airways flight.

Their handycam, too, was stolen. It was worth Rs 15,000.

The couple’s daughter, Sweta, a college student, had to send them money from Calcutta. When she went to lodge a complaint with Thai Airways on July 1, she was asked to send an email. Sweta is yet to hear from the airline.

A Thai Airways official confirmed having received the mail. “An inquiry is on.”

Aviation officials said cash and valuables should be carried in handbags. “If anyone carries them in the registered baggage, he has to declare that during security check,” said an Airlines’ Operators Committee member.

The Chaudharys being first-time fliers did not know this. “When our luggage was scanned before boarding at Calcutta, the security personnel spotted the camera but did not ask us to give a declaration,” said the trader.

It’s not always cash and gadgets that are lost. US-based couple Shreelina and Kaustav, who took a Continental flight from Detroit to New Jersey and a Jet Airways flight from there to Calcutta, via Brussels and Mumbai, lost branded chocolates, perfumes and clothes.

“Our luggage hadn’t arrived when we landed at Mumbai on Wednesday night. It was handed over in Calcutta, the locks and security straps intact,” said Mukherjee. The couple, research fellows at Michigan State University, detected the theft moments later.

Mukherjee, too, was asked to send a mail when he visited the airport to lodge a complaint. “The thieves tore open the plastic covers and rummaged through three of our four bags. They took only the valuable and branded stuff,” said Shreelina. A Jet official said the airline has started a probe.