BENGALURU: Customs sleuths have made a record seizure of 100kg of gold valued at `30.48 crore in the year 2017-18. This is nearly 200 per cent increase in the gold seizure as compared to the seizure of 34.495kg of gold worth `9.97 crore in 2016-17.
“Various modus operandi have been adopted by passengers for smuggling gold through KIA, including rectum concealment, gold biscuits in fruit juicers or mixers, gold pieces in ladies hair clips, in gas stove, concealment of gold wire in beadings of trolley bags, concealment of gold beads in embroidery of dress material and concealment by way of silver colour coated gold ornaments. An interesting modus operandi which was busted by Airport Customs was concealment of gold foils in between layers of corrugated boxes.
The sides of the boxes containing toys had gold foils neatly pasted in between layers of papers wrapped in carbon sheets. About 1 kg gold was recovered from these boxes from a passenger coming from Dubai,” an official release from the Customs Department said.
“A major haul was the seizure of 33.5 kg gold in courier. The gold was concealed in the fuel pump and air filter of automobiles in consignments originating from Dubai. The gold was colour coated and greased to avoid detection.
A total of 34 people have been arrested in this regard including Jordanian and Sri Lankan nationals. It is also seen that most of the gold smuggling cases are originating from Middle East followed by Sri Lanka and South-East Asia,” the release added.