The preventive unit of the Customs and Central Excise Department on Friday seized 4 kg of gold from four members of a family who alighted at the international airport here from Dubai.
Officials said the contraband gold was found concealed in the battery cavity of emergency lamps found in their check-in baggage. The metal was in biscuit form. At the baggage screening counter, the contraband appeared on the x-ray screen as dark squares as normal emergency lamp batteries do. However, officials who watched the behavioural pattern of the passengers found them to be unusually nervous. This prompted them to search the baggage, leading to the discovery of the gold.
The Customs were investigating whether the family had acted on their own to subsidise their air travel or they were carriers working for Gulf-based gold smugglers with international links. Officials said smuggling gold into the country involved huge profits, up to Rs.4 lakh a kg given the tax difference.
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The Central government had slapped a prohibitive duty on gold imports to try and bridge the country’s yawning current account deficit, thereby inadvertently giving an impetus to smuggling of the yellow metal.
The contraband concealed in the battery cavity of emergency lamps
in a baggage.