Bengaluru: Flyers caught with Rs 62 lakh gold in bra inserts, underwear

BENGALURU: A woman wearing a custom-stitched sports bra with its padding filled with gold worth Rs 17.5 lakh and a man donning a brief with the yellow metal worth Rs 44.4 lakh, specially fitted to the elastic belt, were caught on arrival at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) recently.
While the woman flew in from Dubai, the man was coming from Abu Dhabi. Both were nabbed by sleuths from Bengaluru Customs.
Sources with the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Bengaluru Customs at KIA said the woman arrived on Emirates airlines flight EK 564 from Dubai on the morning of October 8.
Officers involved in passenger profiling at the arrival bay noticed something unusual about the woman's posture as she walked past.
Women officers accosted her and realised the passenger was nervous and gave unconvincing answers to their questions. She was escorted away immediately and the officials frisked her to find something unusual about the bra she was wearing. She was asked to remove the undergarment and hand it over to them.
The officials cut open the padding area to find the inserts were filled with gold paste weighing 348 grams and estimated to be worth Rs 17,53,630 in the market, sources added.
The man came by Etihad Airways EY 216 in the early hours of Sunday and was detained soon after he disembarked from the flight. He had fitted his brief with bandages around the waist holding gold paste weighing 866 grams worth Rs 44,37,453. He has been booked for smuggling and customs duty evasion.
Gold retrieved from plane
In another case, a passenger who landed at Bengaluru airport from Mumbai on Monday evening was nabbed for carrying three crude gold chains weighing 899 grams.
He boarded the Dubai-Bengaluru flight from Mumbai with a mission to pick up gold placed at a location inside the aircraft by another smuggler coming from Dubai. He retrieved the gold chains worth Rs 46.7 lakh from the plane and flew with them on its domestic leg to Bengaluru, sources said. Officials did not reveal the identity of the three suspects citing ongoing investigation.