CHENNAI: A passenger from Doha, Qatar was caught by Customs personnel for strapping several bars of gold, weighing nearly 3.1 kg, under his clothing.
Siraj, of Bangalore, arrived early on Sunday from Doha on a Qatar Airways flight and tried to leave claiming he had nothing to declare. But customs officials noticed that his body contour wasn’t uniform and ushered him in for a quick check.
When Siraj removed the layers of clothing, they found he had strapped gold bars to his body using graphite paper to avoid detection during scanning. A few gold bars were also found in his baggage before he was quizzed.
Customs officials said he could be part of a larger racket because there was little chance he could have skipped through Qatar airport security with so much gold on his person.
“There is a possibility that he might have taken the gold from his baggage and strapped it on his body in the toilet like many other carriers, but we are probing all angles,” said an official.