CHENNAI: Chennai Air Customs foiled bids to smuggle 3.15-kg gold worth Rs 1.64 crore and arrested two persons on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off that gold was concealed in Air India Express flight that arrived from Dubai, the officials checked the the aircraft.
A pouch was found under a seat, from which, two bundles of gold paste and two gold bars weighing 928 gm and valued at Rs 48.27 lakh was seized. In another case, 169 gm of gold was recovered from a passenger’s socks, who arrived by same flight.
In a separate incident, four passengers who arrived from Dubai were intercepted at exit. On personal search, 11 bundles of gold paste were recovered from rectum. A total of 1.2-kg gold valued at Rs 61.5 lakh was recovered. Two passengers were arrested.
On Tuesday night, five passengers who arrived by Air India Express were intercepted and on personal search, eight bundles of gold paste was recovered. A total of 858 gm of gold worth Rs 45.5 lakh was recovered.
Pharma exporter held for smuggling
A pharma exporter was arrested for smuggling psychotropic drugs through postal parcels. The sleuths intercepted two parcels which were destined for the United States at Foreign Post Office. The first one was found to contain 20 strips of Alprazolam concealed inside a cardboard packet. From the second parcel, 155 tablets of Lorazepam, Clonazepam and Diazepam were recovered. The parcels were booked from Madurai and the exporter sent psychotropic drugs using fake sender names without authorisation from the Narcotics Commissioner and payments were received through Paypal.