[1]Chennai: Customs officials are on the look out for two passengers, who had arrived from Colombo, carrying in their baggage a total of 50 gold coins which they abandoned on the conveyor belt early Thursday morning, fearing discovery by customs officials. The coins weighed 400 gm and were worth over Rs 14 lakh.
Customs sources said that their search was on for Mohamed Rafeeq of Mannadi and Ibrahim from Seven Wells in connection with the seizure of gold cons from their abandoned bags.
Customs officials had intensified their checks early Thursday morning after officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence caught a man with 20 bars of gold, weighing 2 kg and worth Rs60 lakh, after he walked through the customs green channel.
The DRI team had nabbed Avanti Glada, 25, a resident of Kilpauk immediately after he walked through the green channel upon his arrival from Bangkok just before midnight.
The passenger had tried to dodge the officials, saying that was being unnecessarily harassed by them as the DRI team had not been able to find anything in his luggage.
But when the officials examined his suit closely, the DRI investigators found that he had hidden 20 gold bars, each weighing 100 gm, in the lining of his clothes. He was later taken to the DRI’s zonal headquarters in T. Nagar for further questioning.
Smugglers now seem to be focusing more on gold coins and bars perhaps in anticipation of a shortage of gold coins in the Indian market following a self-imposed ban by jewellery sellers associations in the country and the increase in the import duty on gold.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/gold-coin-sale00jpg-072