MANGALURU: Customs officials arrested an international traveller for attempting to smuggle gold stashed inside his body at Mangaluru International Airport on Monday. The accused Abubakar Siddique from Dakshina Kannada had arrived from Dubai on board a SpiceJet flight and was accosted by sleuths of customs on arrival based on passenger profiling, Joannes George, joint commissioner of Customs stated on Wednesday.
The 24 carat gold on purification weighed 634 grams. It was in melted form in three separate large capsules. The capsules per se weighed 761 grams, George said. Value of the purified gold has been estimated to be Rs 33 lakh. The passenger was subjected to a mandatory Covid-19 test and produced before the jurisdictional court.
Customs officials on October 20 had seized 531grams of gold worth Rs 27.4 lakh at MIA.
Arecanut trader robbed
Two miscreants waylaid and assaulted Deepak G Shetty, an arecanut trader, with sharp-edged weapon and forcibly snatched a bag containing Rs 3.50 lakh cash in it at Pajekodi in Biliyoor village of Bantwal taluk on Tuesday. The incident took place when the trader was returning home in his motorcycle around 6.30pm. The pillion rider among the two miscreants who came in a motorcycle stabbed Deepak and snatched the money bag.
The assailant also snatched a gold chain weighing around 12 grams from the neck of Deepak, superintendent of police BM Laxmi Prasad said. A cellphone in Deepak’s possession too has gone missing, the SP said. A case has been registered at Uppinangady police station under sections 341 and 394 of IPC. Further investigation is on, the SP noted.