An air passenger who arrived in the city from Dubai was on Sunday held by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) with gold paste worth ₹23 lakh at the Mumbai international airport.
Hemendra Singh, assistant inspector general and public relations officer, CISF, said at 10.35 a.m., personnel on duty at the pre-embarkation security check Terminal 2 of the airport noticed, on the X-BIS machine, an opaque image inside the hand baggage of a passenger.
“Immediately, the bag was referred for a physical check. Three oval shaped metallic masses, which appeared to be gold paste, wrapped with black adhesive tape were found inside it,” Mr. Singh said.
The passenger was identified as Mubashir Kolkaran, who had arrived from Dubai on an Air India flight at 4.10 a.m, and was bound for Coimbatore on SpiceJet.
On enquiry, Mr. Kolkaran neither replied satisfactorily nor produced any valid document to carry such metallic masses. The Customs/Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officials were informed about the masses, weighing about 670 grams, and confirmed they were gold in paste form.
“The said passenger and the recovered gold paste worth ₹23,15,520 was then handed over to the Customs/AIU officials for further legal action,” Mr. Singh said.
This is the second case of gold paste smuggling being reported in the last month. On October 18, officials of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence thwarted the attempt of a passenger to smuggle in 832 grams of gold paste worth ₹27.87 lakh. The accused, who concealed three elliptical-shaped balls of gold paste in his rectum, smuggled the metal in paste form from Mumbai and was busted at Delhi airport.
