Officers of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Mangaluru Regional Unit, on Friday seized 1.16 kg of 24 carat foreign origin gold, worth about ₹34 lakh, from a toilet at Mangaluru International Airport.
DRI had received a specific information that a passenger had dropped a packet containing gold of foreign origin inside one of the toilets next to the immigration area of international arrivals.
The officials also learnt that there was a plan to retrieve the gold by some cleaning staff who have access to the toilet.
Some personnel rushed to MIA and conducted a thorough search of the toilet.
During the course of the search operation, a small packet containing some metal objects wrapped in black insulation tapes was recovered from a drainage outlet of one of the toilets. On opening the packet, the same was found to contain 10 gold tolas of foreign origin, weighing 1,166.5 gm.
The gold was of of 24 carat purity and the total current market value was ₹34,17,845, said Vinayak Bhat, Deputy Director of DRI in an official release here.
The gold was later seized by the officers of DRI under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962.
