Hyderabad: Customs nab 2 for smuggling gold

Hyderabad: The Air Intelligence Unit of the Hyderabad Customs apprehended two persons who tried to smuggle gold out of the Shamshabad airport after landing here on Sunday. A total of 688.94 gm gold was seized by the officials from the two persons in separate instances.

The passenger was intercepted by airport sub-inspector S. Venkateshwarlu and constables Srisailam and Raju after noticing his suspicious movements at the police outpost.

The passenger was handed over to the AIU sleuths for checking and they found three packets of gold paste concealed in his innerwear.

“The passenger had arrived on an Air Asia aircraft (Flight AK 69) from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The gold after extraction was found to be weighing around 340 gm, worth over Rs 9 lakh. A case has been registered and further investigation is on,” said the AIU officials.

In another incident on Saturday, AIU officials arrested a city resident, who was waiting outside the airport to collect smuggled gold from an air passenger.  The passenger, M. Srinivas, who arrived from Dubai, was found to be carrying gold plates in a travel cooker. He was arrested and about 219.63 gm of gold valued at Rs 7.5 lakh seized from him.

“On investigation, it was found that a receiver of the smuggled gold was waiting outside the airport who was also nabbed. He had received a consignment of smuggled gold. A passenger had brought gold in by concealing the metal in the transformer of a toy car,” an AIU official said.

“The plates of the transformer were placed in such a way that some were of iron and some were of gold. A total of 348.94 gm of gold was recovered and further investigation in the case is on,”  he said.