Vijayawada: A man carrying huge quantity of smuggled gold in form of granules in a compressor of a Malaysian made water purifier has been arrested by the officials of Customs Preventive Commissionerate, Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday near Rajajmundry.
The accused, a young B.Sc graduate from Tamil Nadu, was working as carrier to transport gold weighing 5.4 kilograms from agent in Kolkata to jeweler Chennai. It is worth Rs 1.45 crore.
“The water purifier stuffed with gold granules is factory made and it has reportedly come from Malaysia. The carrier picked it up at Kolkata Airport and was heading towards Chennai in train”, said Commissioner of Customs Mr S Khader Rahman addressing a press conference. “Acting on a tip of we raided the person who claimed selling water purifiers, before Rajahmundry station but found nothing initially. Later we checked the water purifier and its compressor only to find gold granules”, Mr Khader said.
“We realised that there are more such water purifiers out from the source and efforts are on to track them”, Mr Khader added.
Mr Khader further said that it is the biggest seizure in AP so far and the accused was produced before Economic Offences court in Hyderabad. There is an increase in such cases in the commissionerate of late and those getting caught are the carriers who work for little pay, he added.
Speaking about total seizures in commissionerate so far Mr Khader said that as many as 12 persons were arrested in all seven cases and 12 kgs of gold has been seized. He said the agents and jewellers insure the transactions so that they get insurance amount from companies when caught during smuggling.
