Two passengers travelling to Dubai were arrested on Tuesday for attempting to smuggle foreign currency worth ₹1.30 crore by concealing them in hotboxes containing food at Pune airport.
According to Customs authorities, an immigration officer at the airport during passenger profiling found the documents of a man identified as Nishant Vijay Yetam to be suspicious. Yetam, a resident of Nagothane in Raigad, was travelling to Dubai on Air India flight IX 211. Immigration personnel also raised suspicions about another passenger, Harsha Ranglani Raju, who was booked on the same flight. Officials then apprehended Raju, a resident of Chembur in Mumbai.
Following a personal search and detailed examination of the checked-in baggage of the two passengers, dollar bills amounting to $1,72,000 and euro banknotes totalling €30,000 were recovered. Customs officials confiscated the foreign currency valued at ₹1.30 crore under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962.
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M.V.S. Choudhary, Pune Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise, said, “Most of the currency was cleverly concealed beneath the steel casing of four casseroles containing food articles. They were kept in the passengers’ checked-in baggage.” Mr. Choudhary said that the notes were seized under reasonable belief that they were being smuggled outside the country.
Yetam and Raju were produced before the chief judicial magistrate and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. Investigation is in progress.