DRI seizes 4.7 kg gold from flight lavatory

Chennai: In second such incident in five days, unattended gold was seized from inside an aircraft at Chennai airport. While on Sunday, the airline cleaning staff handed over 200 sovereigns of gold found under an aircraft seat to the customs officials, on Thursday department of revenue intelligence (DRI) sleuths recovered 4.7 kg of gold from the lavatory of an aircraft.

According to airport sources, DRI teams were on high alert after inputs about possible smuggling by a passenger traveling in the Air India Express flight from Kuala Lumpur. The flight landed in the city half an hour past midnight on Thursday. Chennai was a stopover and the flight was to leave for Tiruchy in a few hours, airport officials said.

"The DRI teams which started scrutinizing passengers were unable to find gold in any of their baggage after which the search was shifted to the aircraft," an airport official said. While searching the aircraft lavatory, a pack of gold was found stuffed inside the tank of the western toilet. "There were 10 gold bars weighing roughly about 4.7 kg. The value in the international market is more than 1.5 crore," the official added.

DRI suspect some airport staff to have warned the smuggler about the raid.