MOHALI: The customs officers at
Chandigarh International Airport claim to have seized 1-kilogram-plus
gold biscuits worth Rs 31.47 lakh from a Nagpur resident who arrived here on Thursday on board an Air India flight from
Sharjah.
The officers say passenger Parkash Heranand Chuttani had concealed the biscuits in a waist pouch on the inner side of the trousers. They identified him based on a secret input and called him for questioning when he was trying to sneak out of the green channel. The man was quick to accept that he was carrying gold. The nine gold biscuits weighed about 116.5 grams each. The customs team had asked him earlier if he had anything to declare, gold in any form specifically. Chuttani was arrested under the Customs Act of 1962 and, later, released on bail.
Recently, the customs at this
airport had seized gold biscuits worth Rs 25.57 lakh from a passenger arrived from Bangkok. Anil Kumar
(40) of Amritsar was hired to deliver this gold outside the airport for Rs 10,000.
Gold smugglers still coming in from UAE
The 11 gold biscuits in three packets were wrapped in polythene and covered with black tape to dodge the X-ray machine.
On January 29, the customs seized its biggest gold haul at the airport, of 8.164kg worth Rs 2.26 crore, from a Dubai passenger.
The second biggest haul of seven kilograms of gold worth Rs 2.1 crore was seized by the directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) on July 3 from another man who had flown in from Dubai.
Representative image
