Airport customs officers seize 1.50 kg gold bars worth Rs 45 lakh

Bengaluru: In an interesting catch, Bengaluru Customs officials busted a smuggling syndicate involving a passenger from Dubai to Bengaluru, who used an E-boarding pass in a bid to smuggle 13 gold bars, weighing 1.5 kg and worth over Rs 45 lakh.

Officials said that the passenger, who boarded the Dubai-Goa-Bengaluru flight – AI994, carried the gold bars and hid them under his seat. He alighted at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru without the gold. But he had sent the E-boarding pass to one of his associates, who boarded the flight in Bengaluru on its onward journey to Hyderabad.

But Bengaluru the modus operandi came to light when Reddy Bethireddy, the passenger who travelled from Dubai to Bengaluru, was intercepted by customs officials. He was questioned based on his suspicious behaviour and inputs given by Goa Customs. But he denied any wrongdoing. An invoice for gold bars bought in Dubai was recovered from him. But he claimed that it belongs to his friend who bought gold in Dubai and it was in his bag by mistake. But a photo of the seat on his phone raised the officials’ suspicion. They rushed to the flight. Since the passengers were seated and flight was to take off, a customs officer boarded the flight AI994, which had now been converted into AI 516, from Bengaluru to Hyderabad and placed himself at a vantage point from where he could observe all the passengers.

The officer noticed a passenger, Samudra Reddy, who was sitting in the same seat as Bethireddy’s, was behaving suspiciously towards the end of the journey. After reaching Hyderabad, he alerted officers of Air Intelligence Unit, Hyderabad who came aboard the flight. They together searched the flight and recovered 1.5 kg of gold from the seat. During inquiry it emerged that Samudra Reddy was travelling on the ticket issued to Bethireddy, who had booked the ticket for the domestic part of the flight too for himself. He admitted that when the flight landed in Goa, he sent the E-boarding pass to Samudra Reddy.

Earlier, Samudra Reddy had entered the KIA terminus by showing a ticket to Thiruvunanthapuram but used the E boarding pass sent to him by Bethireddy to travel to Hyderabad instead. It appeared that Bethireddy concealed the gold in his seat while travelling from Dubai. Since he knew that he would be checked by Bengaluru Customs officials, he left the gold bars in the seat.

The case was registered in Hyderabad and both Samudra Reddy and Mr Bethireddy were arrested in Hyderabad.