Officials of the Customs Air Intelligence Unit at the Cochin International Airport here on Monday foiled another attempt to smuggle gold and seized about 7.2kg of gold, valued around Rs 2 crore in the open market, from two air passengers from Dubai.
The duo was identified as Yousuf, 31 and Afeel, 32, of Kannur, who landed here from Dubai by a Saudi Airways (SV 774) flight at 10 am.
They were intercepted at the exit gate of the arrival hall, on suspicion that they were carrying some contraband goods. When confronted, they, however, denied it but a detailed search of their baggage resulted in the recovery of 62 gold bars weighing about 7.2 kgs.
Out of the 62 gold bars, 32 bars each weighing 116.64grams were concealed inside an AC converter and remaining 30 numbers were cleverly concealed inside a UPS battery. The gold bars were wrapped with carbon paper and cello tapes. Preliminary investigations pointed to the involvement of a huge racket and investigation is on to trace others involved.
