Bhubaneswar: The customs officials seized smuggled gold worth of Rs 8,20,156 from a passenger, who arrived at Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) from Kuala Lumpur on Friday night.
The personal search of the passenger led to recovery of 254.47 grams of gold of foreign origin.
According to sources, the accused landed at the airport here on the intervening night of December 21 and 22 from Kuala Lumpur by Flight No AK 31.
The gold was found concealed in the rectum in form of powder wrapped in black tape and polythene.
Further investigation is on.
There has a spurt in gold smuggling since international flight operations began from the airport.
- On October 8, a passenger, who reached BPIA here in Air Asia’s Kuala Lumpur flight, was detained at the airport for his alleged involvement in god smuggling. Based on spot intelligence, they conducted thorough body search of the person and found gold weighing around 170 gm concealed in his rectum. A silver coated gold kada and two pieces of gold worth around Rs 5.52 lakh were recovered from the detainee, who hail from Ramanathapurm in Tamil Nadu.
- On September 13, officers of the Air Intelligence Unit of Customs Department seized 690.550 grams of gold from a passenger who arrived at the Biju Patnaik International Airport in an Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur. The seized gold has a purity of 99.90 per cent and is estimated to be worth Rs 21.89 lakh. The passenger belongs to Chennai. The officers searched his personal baggage and found four pieces of gold strips of foreign origin.
- On August 31, officials of the Customs Department seized 340 grams of gold from Biju Patnaik International Airport and detained two persons in this connection. The market value of the seized gold is estimated to be worth Rs 10.56 lakh.
- On July 21, the Air Intelligence Unit officials had seized smuggled gold worth Rs 9 lakh at Biju Patnaik International Airport here and detained a person in this connection.
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