Punjab: 2 held for smugging gold from UAE

LUDHIANA: In another crackdown against gold smuggling Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) zonal office Ludhiana has arrested two persons at Amritsar international airport who were trying to smuggle gold from United Arab Emirates (UAE) to India.
In a shocking revelation along with their headgear both of them had concealed gold worth Rs. 1.90 crore in their shirt, pants and innerwear which they got specially made for smuggling as extra layer of fabrics was created in them for stuffing gold in form of paste in them.Both the persons had alighted from a flight arriving from Sharjah on April 5th and after their arrest they were produced in a court which has remanded them into judicial custody for fourteen days.
This is second similar attempt in recent times foiled at Amritsar airport under which the accused tried to smuggle gold under similar modus operandi of converting it into paste and crossed the green channel without declaring the gold and metal detectors also failing to detect it. Giving more information a source privy to the investigation said, “Under instructions from DRI’s additional director general, Nitin Saini team Amritsar regional unit team of agency intercepted two Jalandhar residents who arrived at Amritsar International Airport in flight from Sharjah on April 5th and crossed the green channel without declaring anything objectionable in their possession. During the frisking of both of them after the green channel, about 3.6 kilgrams of gold paste was seized from them which the duo had concealed in their head gear and surprisingly even in their shirts, pants , innerwears by creating an extra layer of fabric”
Prior to this operation DRI, on February 25th had arrested three passengers who had arrived by same flight from Sharjah to Amritsar as in the latest case. At that time as well the trio had crossed green channel without declaring anything or without anything detected from them when they passed through metal detectors. But after their thorough frisking by DRI 9.20 kilograms of gold paste worth Rs. 4 crore was seized from them which they had concealed in their head gears.