The Delhi zonal unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Sunday claimed to have seized 44 kg of gold, valued at about ₹12.5 crore.
The gold was allegedly smuggled into the Capital for sale from Dubai by concealing it in an egg incubator.
Adhesive material
A truck carrying the incubator and other poultry equipment was seized in Chander Vihar in Delhi while on its way to Chandni Chowk, said DRI officials, adding they had received information about the vehicle coming from Mundra port in Gujarat.
The gold bars were wrapped in thick silver-grey paper smeared in adhesive to prevent any metallic sound during the vehicle’s movement, said a statement issued by the DRI.
A DRI official added they had placed 11 bars each of one kg on four different horizontal channels of the incubator. These channels are meant to keep eggs.
“We recovered 44 kg of foreign marked gold of 0.995 purity concealed in metallic packing case of poultry egg incubator being imported by the smugglers,” said the statement.
Input on businessman
The input that the DRI received was that for the past few months one person running a poultry equipment business had increased the number of disassembled poultry egg brooder panels imported from Dubai and each time he would order one poultry egg incubator in the consignment.
It said the smugglers were bringing in around 40-50 kg of foreign marked gold bars concealed in the metallic case each time and are suspected to have illegally smuggled 300 kg of gold in this period.
“The metallic case package was subsequently retrieved by smugglers using cutter and drill machines for sale,” the press release said.
The DRI has arrested Harnek Singh, said to be running the poultry business. The driver is also being questioned. Efforts are on to identify other members of the alleged network.
The importer’s residence and factory were searched, leading to the alleged recovery of incriminating evidence.
