A whopping 355 kg of gold worth ₹123 crore was seized from hundreds of passengers at Chennai airport last year. The airport witnessed a huge increase of 53% in its seizures, when compared to the previous year.

Data accessed by The Hindu shows, in 2018, 232 kg of gold worth ₹72 crore was seized as against 355 kg in 2019.

Speaking to The Hindu, Rajan Chaudhary, Commissioner of Customs, Chennai International Airport, says most of these passengers come from destinations like Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. “Earlier, we used to find most passengers coming from the Middle East conceal gold in various forms and come to the city. But these days, it is predominantly from Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. We have stepped up vigilance substantially and that’s one of the major reasons we have been able to seize the gold. Apart from intelligence inputs, we also carefully check passengers and that has helped,” he says.

From concealing the precious metal in MP3 players to skateboards and even door latches, passengers have found innumerable ways to hide gold. But most of them conceal gold inside their rectum. The biggest case in 2019 however, was when two Korean passengers from Hongkong concealed 24 kg of gold worth ₹8 crore inside their shorts.

This apart, Chennai Customs has also seized foreign currencies of various countries worth ₹10 crore carried by passengers. In one case, diamonds weighing 2,996 carat worth ₹2.25 crore was also seized by officials last year. A Malaysian passenger who came from Kuala Lumpur had concealed them in his inner wear and also at the bottom of a multi-purpose cooker in his check-in baggage.

What happens to this gold and foreign currencies seized?

“After a certain period of time, the gold and foreign currencies seized are sent to the Reserve Bank of India. If a passenger carries gold that is valued at above ₹20 lakhs, then he is arrested and the gold is seized,” he says.

He noted that, in 2019, there were also four different attempts to smuggle in saffron. Officials seized 65 kg worth ₹1.4 crore in 2019 when compared to 33 kg in 2018.

Wildlife smuggling

Importantly, the number of people attempting to smuggle in various species of wildlife has also gone up, he says. There were 14 cases where passengers tried to bring in exotic species in 2019 as against three the previous year. From kangaroo rats to meerkats, passengers have been found to conceal several such species inside their baggage. “When we asked, we found they bring in these species to sell them here; many want to keep them as pets at home,” he adds.