Hyderabad: Smugglers are finding new ways to smuggle gold into the country, trying out new routes like Myanmar and Sri Lanka and even trying trains to evade the routine air route.
Also, in most of the cases, the gold was concealed inside electronic items, including screwdrivers and ovens.
Earlier, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials have seen many instances when the yellow metal was concealed inside rectums, shoes and baggage. But these were becoming common places, so the smugglers came up with new ways.
On February 4 last year, a man travelling from Guwahati to Tambaram in Chennai was caught at Nellore railway station. An electric and a coal stove he was carrying were found to be unusually heavy. On checking, a layer of wax was found on the four semi-circular rods moulded inside the stoves. These were gold. The rods weighed 4.658 kg and were worth TRs 1.43 crore, said the officials.
Three days later, a passenger travelling to Chennai from Guwahati was caught at Rajahmundry railway station carrying five screwdrivers in tool boxes. Also, there was 2.496 kg of gold worth Rs 77.39 lakh. The officials said that in both incidents in AP, the gold was smuggled from Myanmar. The metal was smuggled to Guwahati and then dispersed.
In the last week of December, DRI officials caught 2.045kg of gold moulded into thin plates and concealed in a microwave oven at RGIA. About 46 thin plates inside the electrical item had been smuggled in from Oman.
In another instance, 1.269kg of gold in the form of a thick paste put inside polythene covers and concealed in one’s undergarments was seized in Hyderabad. The gold had been smuggled in from Colombo in Sri Lanka.
Officials said that in many cases the seized gold had been smuggled in from Gulf countries. As vigil increased, the smugglers chose to send the precious metal through countries like Myanmar and Sri Lanka, not just to Hyderabad, but also to several metropolitan cities across the country.
