It’s Raining Gold at MIA! Gold & Foreign Currency worth Rs 37.24 lakh Seized, 3 Arrested
Mangaluru: In spite of customs officials making frequent arrests of those passengers carrying contraband items and gold, people are still foolish, taking risks in carrying gold, foreign currency and getting caught and facing all the inconveniences and heavy fines or could be jail term. Once again, following close on its heels, after arrests made of passengers during the last couple of days carrying gold and other banned items, yesterday, 4 March 2019, in separate incidents, customs officials at Mangaluru International Airport seized 549.98 grams of gold worth Rs 19.14 lac and foreign currency worth Rs 18.10 lakh and arrested three persons in this connection.
In a separate case, handled by the Air intelligence wing of the customs department, sleuths confiscated foreign currency from a passenger who was about to fly to Dubai. The arrested person was carrying foreign currency of USD, EURO, Omani Riyals and Kuwaiti Dinar worth Rs 18.10 lac. These currencies were hidden in between cloth in the luggage bag of the passenger. This is the second such detection of foreign currency in the recent past at MIA, where customs had seized foreign currency worth Rs 7.65 lakh on 10 February 2019.
In the second incident, customs sleuths seized 232.62 gram of 24 carat gold worth Rs 7.68 lac, which was hidden in a round shaped plate coated with silver and kept inside a cooker, from a passenger who arrived in Air India flight from Dubai. This came to light when the passenger was subjected to intensive physical frisking based on definite information.
The custom officials also confiscated 317.36 grams of 24 Carat gold in powder form that was hidden inside the rectum of the passenger who arrived from Dubai by Air India Express IX814. The passenger was arrested based on active profiling of possible suspects who run the Dubai-Mangaluru route.
Note : Pics for illustration only