Ethiopian woman with 1.2kg gold held

CHENNAI: An Ethiopian woman was held with 1.26 kilo gram gold by Customs at the Chennai airport on Wednesday, a departure from the usual run of culprits who are Indians travelling from the Gulf or Southeast Asian countries.

She was among 10 passengers who were arrested from the airport in the last two days by Customs who seized a total of 3.5kg of gold worth ₹1.15cr from them.

The 56-year-old Ehtiopian woman, Muhubo Aden Muhamed, who had arrived from Nairobi via Sharjah on an Air Arabia flight was intercepted at the exit of the arrival hall. When asked if she was carrying any gold, she was evasive in her replies and appeared to be nervous.

Customs officials then searched her and found yellow metallic powder concealed in her undergarments. It was found to be 1.26 kilo gram of gold of 94% purity valued at ₹39.15 lakh.

Her travel documents showed she had come to India many times earlier and had landed at Mumbai and Delhi. She was visiting Chennai for the first time.

On Thursday morning, three men — Irsath, 24, of Ramanathapuram, and Mohamed Sirajudeen, 29, of Chennai, had arrived from Colombo by a Srilankan Airlines flight and a Spicejet flight respectively, and Muzammil Riswan, 30, of Chennai had arrived from Dubai by Indigo Airlines — were intercepted at the exit of the arrival hall. A total of 909 grams of gold valued at ₹30 lakh was recovered from them.

Earlier on Wednesday six other cases were detected. Sahabar Sadiq Ali, 48, of Nambuthalai and Iburahimsha, 44, of R Puthuppattinam, who had arrived from Colombo by Srilankan Airlines flight were intercepted at exit and found to have concealed 483 grams of gold valued at ₹16 lakhs.

The other four men — Mohamed Sulthan, 43, of Madurai, Sulaiman, 23, of Ramanathapuram, Sheik Abdullah, 22, and Ajmal Khan, 33, both residing in Ramanathapuram — too had arrived from Colombo, but by an Air India flight.

Customs recovered 88 grams of gold valued at ₹29 lakh from them.