Gold smugglers have been known to stash the ‘good stuff’ in every known orifice to evade capture. But for once, two men dumped their sizeable gold reserves in the one space available to them on an aircraft, after it had landed — the cramped plane toilet.
One of the reasons why the smugglers opted to stash the gold there was because of the sheer size of the consignment — 32 gold bars weighing 1 kg each, making it the largest gold haul at the Chennai airport in the past few years. The gold was valued at a whopping `9.5 crore in the Indian market.
The Chennai Zonal Unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had received a tip-off that a huge consignment of gold would be smuggled from Dubai to Chennai on Air India flight AI 906, that arrived at 5.20 am on Monday. “Acting on the lead, we had sent a team to the airport with a detailed strategy to nab them in place,” said an official with the DRI.