Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Sunday said that they seized 1,269 grams of gold, valued at around Rs 40 lakh, from a passenger at the Rajahmundry airport in Andhra Pradesh. The gold was said to be smuggled from Sri Lanka.
Based on intelligence inputs, personnel from the Kakinada office of the DRI waited and intercepted a passenger who arrived from Hyderabad, on a flight on September 14, a press release from the DRI’s zonal unit in the city said.
Officials said that the accused was found to be carrying the gold in a paste form and had concealed it in his innerwear.
Media reports stated that the gold was suspected to be smuggled from Colombo to Madurai in Tamil Nadu, but was left behind by his accomplice in the aircraft, which was later flown to Rajamahendravaram airport via Hyderabad.
The gold has been seized under the Customs Act, 1962 and further details would be revealed after an investigation, officials said.
This is not the first such case to come to light from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, as in July this year, DRI officials seized 1.12 kg of gold disguised as paste worth around Rs 34.57 lakh from a passenger in Hyderabad airport.
The passenger was travelling on a Madurai-Hyderabad bound flight. During examination, officials found two package weighing 1.850 kg in his hand luggage, after thorough investigation and tests, the officers determined that the packages of paste had gold content of 1.120 kg.
To extract the gold, officials heated the paste using kerosene. Later, after formulating the paste in laboratory, they could extract gold from the paste.
Officials said that the passenger had admitted that the gold was smuggled into the country from Colombo. According to the officials, the gold was concealed in the aircraft by another associate of the smuggler at Colombo, during the flight’s travel from Colombo to Madurai. The detained accused was entrusted with the job of retrieving the gold from the aircraft during its domestic run between Madurai and Hyderabad, which was foiled by the officials.