BENGALURU: Five passengers, including two women, have been nabbed at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) for smuggling gold worth over Rs 70 lakh.
On Sunday, sleuths of the Bengaluru unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence arrived at the airport following information and intercepted two women passengers of an aircraft that arrived from Dubai.
When the women refused to cooperate, the team took them to a hospital to conduct a body scan which showed they’d hidden oval-shaped pouches. One suspect had three and the other two, containing gold in paste form, concealed in the rectum. The gold was estimated to be 1.30kg and worth Rs 35 lakh.
Gold in iron box, charger
On Monday, a passenger landed at the airport from Kuwait with an iron box in his bag. Suspecting that he was carrying a concealed device, customs sleuths intercepted him after baggage scanning.
Dismantling the device revealed gold pieces weighing 350 grams. The 35-year-old flyer, a native of Andhra Pradesh, was booked and gold worth Rs 17 lakh seized.
On Tuesday, two flyers from Tamil Nadu who arrived from Dubai, were intercepted by customs sleuths. The electrical devices, including cellphone chargers, in their bags appeared dismantled and put together. One man’s bag containing electrical items had 204 grams of gold pieces estimated to be worth Rs 10.7 lakh and his accomplice was carrying a charger with 182 grams of gold worth Rs 9.5 lakh hidden inside.
With the first few days into the new year witnessing a big haul of gold, officials are on high alert as international air travel, especially to the Gulf, will escalate in the coming days, sources said.