Hyderabad: 2kg gold seized, smuggler yet to be identified

Hyderabad: Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials seized about 1.916 kg of 99.5 per cent pure gold from an aircraft that arrived at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport from Dubai on Wednesday.  Officials recovered the smuggled gold under a seat in the aircraft before it left for Visakhapatnam.

The Air India flight (AI 952) from Dubai to Hyderabad had landed at RGIA on Wednesday morning. DRI officials were acting on a tip-off that the gold was smuggled into the aircraft as soon as it landed at Shamshabad. When they checked the craft, they found about 1.916 gm gold concealed under a seat. The seized gold is worth '63 lakh. However, the passenger who smuggled the gold is yet to be identified.

The officials said that the modus operandi adopted by smugglers was similar to the recent gold bars that were smuggled from Sharjah to Hyderabad.

“The AI 952 flight was about to leave to Vishakhapatnam and then it becomes a domestic run. The aides of the smugglers would have collected the during the domestic run of the gold, they need not clear the customs and immigration checking and walk through the Green channel. But, we did not gave that chance and seized the gold. A case has been registered and further investigations are on,” said an official from DRI.

In the earlier incident, the gold was caught in Hyderabad, during the sixth-leg (Sixth destination) travel of the flight. The flight from Sharjah came to Tiruvananthapuram and then carried passengers to Ahmedabad, Indore, Delhi and others places and came to Hyderabad, and the passenger along with the two kg gold was caught, said the official.