TIRUCHY: Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) sleuths at Tiruchy international airport have nabbed two passengers from Dubai who tried to smuggle pieces of gold by swallowing them.
The duo has been admitted in the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital after court orders and doctors are treating them to ‘bring out’ the gold pieces.
The air customs officials noticed two passengers — Abdul Rasheed (31) and Mohamed Askar Ali (28) — of Nambuthalai in Thiruvadanai Taluk in Ramanathapuram district, behaving in suspicious manner when they arrived here by an Air India Express flight at 1:40 pm on Tuesday.
After becoming suspicious, the officials made the duo pass through the metal detector to check if they were concealing any valuables. Since they were not satisfied, the duo was frisked and was made to undergo the scanner check. After the check, the officials ascertained that they had swallowed the yellow metal in a bid to evade customs duty. Subsequently, they were detained by the officials and admitted in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the air customs officials also seized 196 grams of gold worth over `5.5 lakh from a passenger during the late hours of Tuesday. The passenger was identified as Naseeruddin (32) of Kottaiyur in Sivagangai district and arrived in Tiruchy from Kuala Lumpur by an Air Asia flight at 11.25 pm. When the officials checked him, they found he was carrying 196 grams of gold pieces concealed as chocolates. The officials seized all the gold pieces and released him.
In June, the AIU secured a group of nine passengers from Malaysia and ‘took out’ 2.7 kg gold from them.