Three days after a man was caught at the Hyderabad airport smuggling 33 gold bars hidden in his shoes and around his waist, customs officials have again seized around 3 kilos of gold from two passengers, this time, hidden inside their pants.
The two offenders were travelling in an IndiGo flight from Dubai to Hyderabad, carrying gold weighing 3.329 kg, believed to be worth more than Rs 1 crore. Officials found that they had hidden the gold within the stitching of their jeans.
In spite of many such incidents being detected at the Hyderabad Airport and authorities seizing the smuggled gold, the smuggling attempts have persisted and only increased in the recent weeks. According to a report in The Hindu, between April 1 and May 7, around 10 kilos of gold - worth more than Rs 3 crores - has been seized. This is already a quarter of the amount seized during the financial year 2018-19, which was around 40 kilos.
According to The Hindu, just between May 2 and May 7, seven cases of smuggling were detected. In spite of constant vigilance by customs officials, passengers seem to be finding unique ways to hide smuggled goods. Hiding gold paste in their pants seems to be a popular choice, with officials finding that another passenger from Doha had used the same method in April. The man was caught carrying gold paste in his trousers and from him, gold worth nearly Rs 37 lakh was extracted. According to TOI, 26 alleged gold smugglers were caught at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the past year.
On May 2, a man arriving from Dubai was caught smuggling around 650 grams of gold in the form of belt buckles and silver and copper-coated golden wire inside a trolley bag. In March, a passenger was caught by customs officials smuggling 349.35 grams of gold in the form of wrist watch dials, while another group of passengers from Dubai were caught smuggling 3 kilos of gold coated in aluminium.
