Mangaluru: Customs thwart attempt to smuggle gold, cigarettes, arrest one

MANGALURU: Air intelligence unit (AIU) and preventive wing of Customs Commissionerate, Mangaluru on Tuesday thwarted attempts by an air and train passenger respectively to smuggle gold into the country and clandestinely transport duty evaded foreign cigarettes for domestic sale.
AIU personnel at Mangaluru International airport arrested a person for smuggling gold and detained the train passenger with contraband cigarette pending investigation.
Giving details of these detections, Joannes George, joint commissioner, Customs told reporters that AIU personnel based on passenger profiling stopped a passenger who had arrived from Dubai on board Air India flight IX814 at around 4.40am and checked him. The passenger had concealed 766 grams of gold in crude form on his body. The department assayer was able to separate and recover 633 grams of 24K gold valued at Rs 25 lakh from his possession.
Raghavendra, deputy commissioner, who headed the operation said the accused, who was arrested and produced before the JMFC First Class fifth court was returning to India after a gap of one year. Based on a plea by special public prosecutor, the court remanded the accused to judicial custody up to February 25, which is one the longest that a person caught in possession of contraband gold has been remanded to in recent past, Raghavendra said.
In the second case, a person waiting to board a train for Mumbai was nabbed with contraband cigarette cartons at Mangaluru junction railway station. “He had come to the city from Kasaragod on a Pune bound train and was waiting to board the train to Mumbai, when he was searched on a tip off,” Rajesh Poojary, assistant commissioner, said. Customs recovered 120 cartons of Dunhill and Gudang Garam, flavoured cigarettes from his possession.
George complimenting the work done by Raghavendra and his team that comprised Sreenath H V, superintendent and Sinmaya Pradhan, inspector and Rajesh and his team comprising Pradeep Kumar, superintendent and Rohidas Naik, inspector said Customs will thwart any and all attempts by people to smuggle gold or any other items or sell contraband that denies the government its rightful share of revenue while respecting honest passengers.