Hyderabad: Customs department on Sunday took over the case of gold biscuits being sold by a trader to convert black money into white at Tanuku in West Godavari district.
Customs officials seized six gold biscuits worth Rs 17.7 lakh from a goldsmith cum trader identified as Kanishetty Suri Babu son of Ramulu a resident of Tanuku.
Initially on Saturday West Godavari Superintendent of Police Task Force team laid a trap in a sting operation. The local police team approached Suri Babu for conversion of demonetised notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 who offered to sell gold biscuits on higher price. The team took Suri Babu into custody and found him in possession of six gold biscuit including five of foreign make.
A team of customs department led by Joint Commissioner S Narasim-ha Reddy and Superinten-dent P Panduranga Rao plunged into action when it was found that smuggled biscuits are used.
“If they are locally made local made biscuits we will not have role. All five biscuits are suspected to be smuggled from Bangladesh and while one is MMTC made. Each one is 100 grams in weight. So we booked a case under customs act as the accused failed to provide any documentation in support of his possession of imported gold,” said a customs official.
Police and customs official said that the conversion of demonetised notes into gold is happening on large scale.
