Die is cast: This is the latest trick of gold smugglers

CHENNAI: With the Airport Intelligence Unit in Chennai busting gold smuggling operations almost on a daily basis, criminals have started using courier services to sneak in the yellow metal. What more: They have been concealing the gold inside ‘metal dies’ that are used to cut sheet metal.  

“We busted such an attempt on Thursday, after we got a tip-off that gold was being smuggled from UAE through courier services,” says Chennai Air Customs Commissioner Rajan Chaudhary. “The Courier Intelligence stopped a parcel that arrived from Sharjah. The bill claimed the item inside was a metal die, weighing 12.7 kg.”    

The officials opened the package to find two pieces of the ‘die’. They seemed to be made of solid iron. Scanning detected no abnormalities. However, unconvinced, the sleuths took the dies to a welding shop and cut it open. They found that one of the piece was solid, but the other one had a cavity in it.  Inside, mixed with moong dal were gold beads 2-3 millimetre in size. “A total of 521 grams were seized, worth Rs 22.5 lakh.” A Thane-based man, to whom the shipment was addressed, has been arrested.