10 kg Gold seized at Chennai, Tiruchirappalli airports

Chennai: In a major haul, officials have recovered over 10 kg gold from passengers at Chennai and Tiruchirappali airports, valued at around Rs 3 crore. In a late night recovery on Sunday, Rs 2 crore worth of the yellow metal weighing 7.5 kg was recovered from three passengers who had arrived in Chennai from Kolkata by a private airline, airport officials said.

They were identified as Tameem Ansari, Mohammed and Basheer, the officials said, adding, they were detained based on prior information received by Directorate of Revenue Information. Similarly, a passenger, identified as Samseer who arrived from Dubai this morning, was held for carrying 1.5 kg of gold biscuits in his hand luggage. The seizure was valued at around Rs 42 lakh, officials said.

At Tiruchirappalli, gold bars worth about Rs 44 lakh were seized from a passenger arrived at the airport from Singapore, airport sources said. The gold weighing 1.534 kg was recovered from the baggage of 35-year-old Jahir Hussin, hailing from Tiruppur, last night and he has been arrested, they said.

Meanwhile, Customs officials have intensified investigation into the seizure of 23 kg of gold from a passenger on Sunday at the airport here and probing if some government and private employees in the airport colluded in the crime, officials added.