BENGALURU: Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) Customs officials seized `32.25 lakh in foreign currency from a person hailing from Kerala. He tried to smuggle it to Dubai by stashing the money in a laptop bag on Friday.According to Customs officials, the arrested Abdul Rafique hailing from Kozhikode, was caught while he was travelling on the Emirates Flight EK 0569 to Dubai.
He was intercepted after he crossed the Customs channel where he did not declare anything. After conversing with the passenger, Customs officials frisked him and his baggage was searched. US dollars worth `32.25 lakh were cleverly concealed in the foam partition of his laptop bag. The Customs officials said that investigations are on to find from where Rafique got the foreign currency from.
This is the third incident in two days where Customs officials were successful in nabbing smugglers. On Thursday, they seized gold worth `91 lakh that was concealed inside a cabinet below a wash basin in a washroom of the Indigo flight 6E 096 which arrived from Dubai.
According to a press release issued by Customs department, the officers found two packets of gold concealed inside the washroom. It is suspected that gold was hidden there to be retrieved by either the ground staff or the passengers travelling on the domestic leg of the same flight.
The international flight was further supposed to be routed as a domestic flight to Jaipur. As it was a domestic flight, there would be no Customs check at the Jaipur airport.
Another possibility could be the involvement of the aircraft cleaning staff at the Bengaluru or Jaipur airport. The airport ground staff as well as the crew of Indigo flight 6E 096 are being questioned, said the Customs officials.
In a previous incident on Tuesday, customs officials arrested a Sri Lankan national who was trying to smuggle gold worth `6.04 lakh. The arrested, Thajoon Mohammed Lebbe, landed at KIA from Colombo by Jet Airways flight No 9W 0277 at 5.50 am. Based on the details provided by the airport Customs Officers, the passenger was detained and questioned. After investigation it was found that the passenger had concealed cut pieces of gold in his rectum. A total of 6 pieces of gold, around 200 gms valued at `6.04 lakhs in the international market, was recovered.
In the past one month, this is the fourth case of gold seizure. Interestingly, in three cases, the smugglers have been in the same Indigo flight 6E 096 coming from Dubai, and another one in Jet airways.