Amritsar:- Three passengers including a woman have been arrested at Amritsar airport with gold worth Rs 1 crore. The three were smuggling gold by hiding it inside a paste and in the form of bangles and chains. The action was taken by teams of the Customs Department and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). According to a customs official, the recovered gold has been seized.
Cases have been registered against the detained passengers under various sections of the Customs Act, 1962. The department has started an investigation to find out if there is an international gold smuggling syndicate behind these incidents.
Gold is cheaper in the UAE cities of Sharjah and Dubai compared to India, including Punjab. Smugglers make huge profits due to the high import duties levied on entry into India. To take advantage of this price difference, they smuggle gold into India illegally by using passengers as carriers.
A team of DRI Amritsar and Customs officials stopped a passenger coming on a flight from Sharjah on suspicion. On investigation, X-ray scanning and personal search, 174 grams of gold in the form of paste was recovered from the passenger’s possession. After extraction, the weight of the gold was 150.04 grams, with an international market value of ?22,05,588. The gold was being smuggled by hiding it inside shoes.