Chennai: Sleuths from DRI had seized a total of 1.38 kg gold worth over Rs 38 lakh smuggled by concealing in toys, key chains, children’s shoes at Madurai airport.
Acting on specific intelligence input a DRI team intercepted a passenger at the Madurai airport on Thursday when he landed there from Dubai. After examining the checked-in baggage of the passenger, the DRI official found that he was carrying pens, baby sandals, baby shoes, key rings, toy cars and paper clips. They were found to be abnormally heavy and coated with nickel.
When questioned, the passenger said they were ordinary articles which he had purchased in Dubai.
However, when these articles were scanned it was found that they had suspected material concealed under them. All such metal pieces were taken out and checked further and found that those were gold materials. “There were 182 pieces made of 24-carat gold totally weighing around 1.38 kg,” DRI official said on Friday.
The passenger had told the DRI team that the articles were handed over to him by somebody in Madurai for handing over to a person in Madurai who would be contacting him over the phone for collecting it on a commission basis.
DRI officials also noted that the gold smugglers off late had been using novel methods to smuggle gold into the country. Recently customs had detected two cases of smuggling of gold by dissolving the yellow metal in acids and bringing it as floor cleaning liquid from abroad.
