Man held with 10 gold bars at city airport

AHMEDABAD: In a joint operation, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of customs department on Wednesday arrested a man for smuggling gold worth Rs 27 lakh at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
The Chennai-based man was caught with gold bars concealed in rectum. Acting on a tip-off by DRI, 29-year-old Syed Dulkarni was caught with gold bars by AIU.“This is a new modus operandi used by smugglers. This man came at the customs counter to declare two pieces of gold bars so that he is not frisked by officials. Since we had information by DRI, we checked him and found eight gold bars of 100 grams each in his rectum and two gold bars in his pocket,” said a customs official.
The man had arrived from Air India flight AI-331 from Bangkok early morning. “Dulkarni is a carrier and he was to get Rs 30,000 paid for delivering the consignment,” added the official.
This is the first time that a carrier has come from Bangkok with illegal gold. The smugglers bring in gold from places such as Dubai, Sharjah and Singapore as gold is cheaper there. The gold smuggling has increase manifold in the last one year.
This is the first such incident in December of gold smuggling. Since January 2014, customs department alone has seized 54.82 kg of gold, worth Rs 15.66 crore and detained 64 smugglers at the city airport.
Further investigation in this case is under progress and Dulkarni has been sent into custody by a local court. It has been over 18 months since the Centre imposed restrictions on gold imports and since then the yellow metal is being smuggled into the country by various means.