Gold worth 70.58 lakh recovered from aircraft at Mumbai airport

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Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Customs officials recovered 10 gold bars weighing 1.16kg from passenger Kiranji Thakor, travelling on a Jet Airways flight from Dubai. Gold worth Rs 24.68 lakh was also recovered from passenger Himanshu Pals who travelled from Singapore on a Jet Airways flight. According to officials, three silver coloured chains carried by Pals, who holds a Fiji passport, turned out to be gold.

Gold seizures at the Mumbai airport are at an all-time high with the Customs officials managing to seize around 856kg until February in this financial year, up from 272kgs seized till February the previous year.

Last month, an Indigo flight departing to Muscat was detained by the Mumbai Customs after 6kg gold worth Rs 1.49 crore was found in its toilets.According to officials, that aircraft had made runs on the Dubai-Calicut-Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata-Bombay-Muscat but culprits, possibly crew or staff, could not retrieve the gold earlier.

With the government not having announced any change in 10 per cent import duty on importing gold in the budget recently, such gold smuggling will only rise, said Customs officials.