Man held at IGIA with gold worth Rs 45 lakh

A passenger trying to smuggle in gold by hiding it in a metal strip in his trolley bag was held by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on Tuesday. The man had arrived from Dubai and was travelling to Bangkok.

According to senior officers, the passenger was carrying nearly 1.5 kg gold, worth Rs 45 lakh, concealed in his hand baggage. "At 5.15 am, during the pre-embarkation security check at the International Transfer Security Hold Area of IGIA, assistant sub-inspector Biman Biswas noticed a suspicious image in the hand baggage of a passenger, while conducting an X-Ray screening. 

The passenger was identified as Abdul Nizar, an Indian who had arrived from Dubai by flight AI 996 almost an hour ago and was scheduled to travel to Bangkok by the Air India flight AI-332 the same day," said Hemendra Singh, AIG and PRO, CISF.

The passenger was then asked to open the bag for physical checking. Sub-Inspector Santosh Kumar Saha of CISF then recovered three packets of saffron, weighing nearly 3 kg and also an extra strip affixed on the inner border of the baggage.

"The extra strip was affixed by a screwdriver and wrapped with black cello tape for concealment. It was also noticed that the strip was coated with mercury to avoid detection during screening. During interrogation, the passenger revealed that the extra strip had gold weighing about 1.5 kg," Singh said.