Two Chinese men accused of smuggling 40 kg gold detained
CHENNAI: Customs officials on Tuesday said they detained for questioning two Chinese nationals after an unclaimed bag containing 40kg of goldbars worth 12.6 crore, apparently left by the duo, was found in a toilet at Chennai international airport.
The two middle-aged men, who had arrived in the morning by Cathay Pacific Airlines flight CX 631 from Hong Kong, were not carrying any checked-in baggage and may have panicked on seeing the tight vigilance protocol at the airport and after hanging around the airport for a while would have left for the city hotel where they were found later in the evening, said an official release.
Earlier, after a blue stroller bag was found, during a check, in a toilet, customs officials opened the bag with Chinese markings and found the gold, in 1kg bars, concealed in two plastic boxes. After carefully examining CCTV camera footage a special team fanned out across the city, focusing on the major hotels, before zeroing in on the duo, customs officials said.
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12,000 pairs of fake branded shoes seized
CHENNAI: The next time a local trader in the city offers a 75% or a 90% discount on shoes of foreign brands, he might well be selling fake Chinese goods.
The Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) of Chennai Seaport Customs recently made a big seizure of such counterfeit shoes. In all, 12,000 pairs worth approximately Rs 3.5 crore were confiscated from a container that came from China.
Such consignments have been regularly making their way into Chennai through the sea-port. The importers mis-declare them as ‘unbranded ladies purse’, car hanging accessories and porcelain tiles. The shoes are of popular brands like Adidas, Nike and Reebok.
It is difficult for the customer to ascertain the genuineness of the goods as the manufacturers print a fake unique product code (UPC), similar to the ones the original shoes have.
Lear MoreAirport worker held with 16kg gold
CHENNAI: Customs officers made their biggest smuggling bust in recent times with a haul of 16.4kg of gold worth Rs 4.6 crore — brought to the city by flight from Singapore — from an employee of an airline contractor at the Chennai airport on Monday morning.
Sleuths of the Customs’ Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) at airport found the contraband after stopping a tractor in which J Kumar, 31, was attempting to move three baggage trolleys from the international tarmac to the domestic terminal at the airport, an investigating officer said.
It was second case that customs had recorded of insider involvement in gold trafficking at the airport in less than a fortnight.
“The AIU men thought it was routine check but it appeared odd that there was only a single piece of baggage on the three trolleys,” the officer said. “The bag, which had arrived from Singapore on IndiGo flight 6E 054, also did not have the check-in tag from the originating airport and this flagged off a major alarm.”
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