Mumbai, Jan 12 : Actor Emraan Hashmi, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming streaming series â??Taskaree: The Smugglerâ??s Webâ??, has shared what appealed to him about the show, and its premise. The actor said that he was given 3-4 episodes after the first narration, and he binge read all the episodes.

The actor spoke with IANS during the promotions of the show, and said that he found the concept of the show to be very novel. The show gives a peek into the world of customs, and it immediately caught his attention.

He said, â??Playing a customs officer, this world is very new. Not just for me, but for all the actors. Any actor in our country has had a show, any film that has creatively explored this area of smuggling and air travel. So, when your palette is new, that's a huge bonus. Because you take the audience into a new world, a new experienceâ??.

The series spans key smuggling corridors across Al-Dera, Addis Ababa, Milan and Bangkok, Taskaree opens up the complex machinery of the international smuggling world- a web built on coded routes, false manifests, and calculated misdirection. At its centre is a specialised customs task force at one of the busiest airports in the country, Mumbai International Airport, led by an uncompromisingly honest team of officers: Arjun Meena (played by Emraan Hashmi), Mitali Kamath (played by Amruta Khanvilkar), Ravinder Gujjar (played by Nandish Singh Sandhu), and Prakash Kumar (played by Anurag Sinha). These officers rely on instinct as much as intelligence, knowing one missed detail can undo weeks of surveillance.

â??And of course, in that thriller format, Neeraj Pandey has given a very different spin to it, with different twists and turns. You're expecting something and something comes from left field and catches you unaware. So, I think those are the things that I found very interesting in my first read. After Neeraj's narration, I was given 4 or 5 episodes. And I kind of binge read them and I was completely sold. I was like, yeah, this is something that I want to grab with both handsâ??, he added.

â??Taskaree: The Smugglerâ??s Webâ?? is set to stream on Netflix on January 14, 2026.

/IANS