Hyderabad: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested a city based man who was part of a gold smuggling racket run from Colombo in Sri Lanka and recovered 1.269 kg gold worth Rs 39 lakh hidden in his undergarments.
This is the second such incident in the past two months wherein the sleuths have foiled attempts to smuggle in gold from Sri Lanka.
The man was intercepted on Saturday when he arrived at Rajahmundry airport on Spice Jet flight SG 1267 that departed from Hyderabad on Saturday evening. On examination of the passenger, the officials found a sachet containing a paste like material concealed in his undergarments below the waist.
The man was detained for examination and it was found that the sachet contained gold paste weighing 1.9 kg. The content of actual gold was evaluated as 1.270 gm.
“On interrogation, the man confessed that he was entrusted the job of retrieving the gold paste during the domestic run of the flight. It was smuggled from Colombo and was concealed in the aircraft by his associate on its international run from Colombo to Madurai so as to avoid Customs checks at the international airport. He also admitted that he boarded the flight at Hyderabad and retrieved the gold paste,” said a senior official of DRI.
The man did not carry any documents to prove the legitimate purchase of the gold which was valued at Rs 39 lakh. It has been seized under Customs Act and an investigation has been started, said the officials.
In a similar incident that took place on July 21, an air passenger who arrived at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad from Madurai bound Spice Jet flight SG 1314 was caught smuggling 1.12 kg gold hidden in his undergarments.
The DRI official said, “This is not the first case where gold is smuggled to India from Colombo. In July, a passenger was caught smuggling gold. The gold paste of about 1.8 kg was smuggled to Madurai and then to the city, which contained 1.12 kg gold worth Rs 34.57 lakh.”
The official added, “The racketeers can make a profit of 13 per cent on the yellow metal if they smuggle it. The import tax on the gold is around 10 per cent and the GST is around 3 per cent. The smugglers' profit is the tax they evade. From every kilogram of gold smuggled gold, they make about Rs 5 lakh.”
