Gold recovered aboard two flights, two women held

BENGALURU: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Bengaluru, on a single day seized over 9kg of contraband gold worth Rs 6 crore in two different cases. In one case, the DRI arrested two women passengers, one from West Bengal and the other from Haryana.

On June 4, based on specific and developed intelligence that a syndicate will conceal gold in crude and bar form inside the aircraft during its international leg for further retrieval, officers of DRI Bengaluru searched a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok, which landed at KIA.

“The rummaging resulted in the recovery of 6.834kg of foreign origin (FO) gold in bar and crude form, worth Rs 4.77 crore, which was concealed inside abandoned handbags in the aircraft,” said informed sources.

They added that “based on documents found inside the handbags and inputs from the crew, the officers identified two lady passengers who had left the bags in the craft and intercepted them. After detailed interrogation, they accepted that they had concealed the gold inside the craft. They were subsequently arrested under the Customs Act”.

“The two women were reportedly smuggling gold for someone who had hired them as courier agents. It is still not known who is the person who was to retrieve the smuggled gold from inside the aircraft,” said sources. On the same day, based on specific intelligence input, DRI officials recovered 2.18kg of FO gold in bar form worth Rs 1.52 crore from inside the Emirates flight, which arrived from Dubai at KIA.