Gold biscuits worth Rs 2.5 million recovered from airport lavatory

MUMBAI (Scrap Monster): The officials of the Customs Air Intelligence Unit seized gold biscuits and jewels worth Rs 2.5 million from the lavatory at the arriving hall of the Tiruchi International Airport in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The officials were tipped of regarding gold being smuggled from Singapore and had beefed up security checks at the airport, which forced the smuggler to leave the gold at the lavatory.

The officials recovered six packets wrapped in polythene sheets. Each packet was found to contain a gold biscuit each weighing 100 grams. Gold jewels weighing 266 grams were also seized during the inspection. The biscuits and jewels were valued at Rs 25 lakhs. According to Customs authorities, two gold biscuits were seized from a passenger who arrived from Kuala Lumpur. Investigations are still on, they said.

Earlier during January this year, the Intelligence officials had seized gold biscuits weighing around half-kilogram was seized from three passengers who arrived from Singapore. The gold was found concealed in emergency lamps.

The most recent data released by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and India Customs indicate that seized gold in the country during the initial nine-month period current fiscal has increased three fold when compared with the entire year previous fiscal. The enforcement agencies nabbed 1,074.41 kilogram of gold during April to December as against 326.23 kilograms seized during entire FY 13.

The tight curbs imposed by the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has brought down the official gold imports by the country. On the other hand, the short supply of the yellow metal has sparked increased gold flow through back door routes.