Officials of the Customs Air Intelligence Unit at the Cochin International Airport Limited have seized 4.5 kg of gold from the airport in two separate incidents.
In the first incident, the sleuths seized 2.5 kg of gold from a passenger named Salim, a native of Kannur, who landed here by a Gulf Air flight from Dubai in the morning. He was arrested on the basis of passenger profiling and investigations revealed that the metal was concealed inside a grinder.
In the second incident, officials found 2 kg of gold abandoned inside one of the toilets near the immigration counter. The contraband was first spotted by the cleaning staff during a routine inspection. “The metal was in the form of two gold bars weighing one kilogram each and was kept inside the mobile phone covers,” officials explained.
The incident pointed to the involvement of those employed inside the airport, who might have placed the metal inside the toilet.
