Mumbai: The Customs’ Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) arrested a 40-year-old passenger at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Saturday for smuggling gold into India. The agency said that it seized gold weighing 1.09 kilogram worth ₹63 lakh from him which he was carrying in his recturm in dust format.
The arrested accused, Suban Bashir Ali, a native of Ajmer in Rajasthan, had landed in the city from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to a Customs officer, a trap was laid on the basis of suspicion and Ali was intercepted along with a gold bar of 25 grams, and an oval-shaped gold dust in wax form worth 390 grams. During interrogation, the accused confessed to hiding the gold in his rectum. He voluntarily removed two oval-shaped pallets, wrapped in white adhesive tape, which contained gold dust in wax. The government-approved valuer later verified the veracity and purity of the recovered gold, a gold bar of 25 grams and three-oval shaped pellets containing gold, on examining them and confirmed that the valuables were 24-carat gold dust, having a total weight of 1,095 grams and valued at ₹63 lakh, said customs official.
