1.2 kg gold seized from passenger at Hyderabad airport

The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) sleuths of the customs department arrested a smuggler at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad on Sunday and recovered 1.2kg of gold worth Rs 38 lakh that he had concealed in his rectum.

Acting on information, the AIU team of Hyderabad increased surveillance at RGI Airport.

On the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, AIU officials intercepted a Mumbai-based passenger who arrived at RGIA from Chennai by Air India flight no AI 545 and recovered foreign marked gold bars weighing 1.2kg. The smuggler had



concealed the bars in his rectum, said a customs official.

During preliminary probe, AIU sleuths found that someone had concealed the gold bars in Air India’s flight AI 124 when the aircraft was travelling from Colombo to Chennai. “After landing at Chennai, the same aircraft flew to Hyderabad as a domestic flight and the gold smugglers instructed the arrested accused to pick up the gold bars hidden in the aircraft by another gang member,” said a customs official. A case was booked under the Customs Act, 1962, and the accused was arrested.