Passengers stash gold in rectum

Acting on a tip-off that passengers from Kerala are smuggling gold through the Coimbatore international airport, officers of air customs intelligence unit intercepted two passengers on suspicion. The passengers had arrved from Sharjah by Air Arabia flight on Friday at around 5.30 am.

An x-ray revealed the presence of gold bars in their body. The 16 gold bars weighing a total of 1.856 kg and valued at Rs 50 lakh were recovered from them by administering enema at a private hospital.

“Though they were not carrying anything in their baggage, a detailed examination revealed that they had concealed eight gold bars, each weighing 116 gram in their rectum,” said additional commissioner (customs, central excise and service tax) N.J. Kumaresh.

The two accused - Elayitodiyil Abdul Nasar, 40 and Puthupurakkal Shajahan, 46 both from Malappuram - claimed that they turned carriers and were assured Rs 20,000 for smuggling gold. While the customs officials seized 12.5 kg of gold in ten different incidents last year, this is the first seizure for this year.

On December 31 last year, customs officials made a major haul of 5 kg of gold worth Rs 1.26 crore from Mohamed Khan, 41 at the Coimbatore airport. He was an engineering graduate and was carrying the gold bars in his baggage.

Smuggling gold by concealing in rectum is an old time and painful practice as smugglers have now taken to innovative methods. “This is the fourth incident of smugglers concealing gold in their rectum in the last few years in Coimbatore airport. They have now adopted new techniques like hiding gold in a mixie after removing its motor; replace the coil of an emergency lamp with gold, use gold in rings of hand bags, etc." the official said.

Gold seizures have surged due to a hike in import duty and after passing the black money bills, besides other restrictions. Further investigations are on to crack down on their entire network, besides arrest supplier and buyer of the smuggled gold biscuits.