Two photo albums spiral bound with golden wires and abacus made of golden rods are the latest innovations tried by smugglers to bring gold into the country to evade duty.

On Thursday, customs officials at the city airport intercepted Seguadam Mohamed Rifai, who arrived from Colombo in a Sri Lankan Airlines flight, and seized 890 gm of 24-carat gold camouflaged as rings, rods and buttons in an abacus, trolley bag, photo album and jeans pant.

We have estimated the value of the total gold seized from him at Rs 25,69,430, said Mr Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, commissioner of customs, airport and air cargo, Chennai. “Since, the objects were attempted to be smuggled into the country by way of concealment and non-declaration, we have seized them and arrested Mr Rifai under the customs Act 1962,” he added.

In another case, customs officials seized 2.36 kg of gold worth `60 lakh from a software engineer couple who reached the airport from US via Dubai in an Etihad Airways flight on Friday.

Mr S. Kannan, 40, and Ms Mohanavalli, 35, along with their daughter Tirupathika, 5, were on way to catch a domestic flight to Madurai when the CISF officials found 2.36 kg gold biscuits hidden inside Mr Kannan’s pant pocket.

A senior customs official said air passengers are allowed to bring in 10 kg of gold if they had stayed in a foreign country for more than six months, but then, they should declare it at the customs and pay the required duty.

“The rise in duty structure has led to passengers trying to sneak in gold in innovative ways,” a senior customs official said, adding that Rifai was carrying gold masked in different forms.

He noted that the seizure on Thursday was the first one involving gold at Chennai airport after the announcement in the Union budget, where customs duty was increased to 4 per cent for import of gold.

Duty hike may see more crimes

Industry experts feel that the increase in gold import duty will not reduce imports drastically. It will only lead to increase in smuggling and corruption, they added. In the 2012-13 budget, the Union finance minister had raised customs duty from 2 per cent to 4 per cent, increasing the duty amount on gold to Rs 1.15 lakh per kg.

The importers were already burdened by increase in import duty to 2 per cent from 1 per cent on January 17, 2012. “From Rs 30,000 per kg of customs duty on gold imports, we began to pay Rs 58,000 per kg of duty from January 18,” said Mr Daman Prakash, leading bullion trader in Chennai.

While industry experts opined that the rise in import duty would lead to increase in smuggling, Mr Prakash said, the benefits are minimal for organised syndicates to involve in smuggling. “It will only lead to increase in air passengers bringing in more gold,” he added.

Mr Ajay Vummidi of Vummidi Bangaru Srihari Sons (VBSS) told this newspaper that it was only due to the large amount of gold reserves that public possessed that India did not feel the total effects of the 2008 global recession.

“If the government wanted to reduce gold import, it could have reduced it by promulgating a scheme where the jewellery market can collect from the unused reserves of the public and put that to use,” he suggested.

Mr Vummidi said the jewellery trade employs lakhs of people directly and indirectly without state or Central government support.

Mr Prakash said the requirement of PAN to buy gold worth over `2 lakh would dissuade retailers from buying in bulk.

“I cannot give 15 bills for purchase of 1 kg of gold. So, people will not buy gold now,” he added.