Gold worth Rs 8.9m seized at Hyderabad airport
HYDERABAD: Customs officials at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport seized 1,680 grammes of gold, valued at Rs89.74 lakhs (Rs8.97 million) from two passengers on Sunday.
The gold was concealed in the rectum of the passengers, Customs officials said.
Both the male passengers arrived from abroad. The officials said they acted based on intelligence and detected and seized the contraband.
This is the latest in a series of cases detected at Hyderabad airport in which passengers were found concealing gold in their rectum.
On Feb.22, a domestic air passenger who had concealed gold in paste form inside rectum was apprehended. The customs officials had recovered 975.16 grammes of gold in paste form valued at Rs50.70lakhwhichhehadconcealedinrectum.the passenger had reached Hyderabad from Imphal.
On Jan.11, 1.48kg gold valued at Rs72.80 lakh was seized from three women passengers. One of them had concealed gold in her rectum. In the last week of December last year, Customs officials had recovered 1.19kg gold valued at Rs59.23 lakh from a passenger who had concealed it in his rectum.
With international flights resuming from Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, and Madurai airports, the gold smuggling activities have increased in Tamil Nadu.
The DRI arrested Thangakesavarn and Nandini- Malayasian nationals, from Coimbatore international airport on Friday with 4.2kg of gold worth Rs2.26 crore on Friday.
The air customs intelligence wing has in a couple of days before arrested a Sri Lankan national with 3.2kg of gold from the Madurai airport.
On interrogation, he has informed the customs officials that the Tamil Nadu airports are being used as a major point for the smuggling of gold to India. Far Eastern countries like Singapore and Malaysia and Sri Lanka which are waging a batle against economic crisis are the main sources of gold.
According to Customs officials, smuggling a kilogramme of gold to India fetches anywhere between 5 to 6 lakh rupees and the carriers are generally given up and down tickets and an amount of Rs30,000 to 40,000.