Coimbatore: Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence arrested a couple who returned to Coimbatore from Dubai by flight and had smuggled in 2.6 kg of gold, worth ?1.15 crore.
According to a press release, working on intelligence inputs, the DRI officers of Coimbatore, led by Deputy Director G. Satish kept surveillance of passengers arriving from Dubai by Air India Express flights operated under the ‘Vandhe Bharat’ Mission.
About a couple of weeks ago, the officers of DRI identified and suspected a couple, aged 46 years and 33 years, who came out of the green channel after completing the immigration, medical, and customs formalities. The couple is from Palladam in Tiruppur district. They had gone to Dubai two or three months ago and had returned two weeks ago. On enquiry at the airport on arrival, they denied carrying gold. As the passengers appeared to be uncomfortable and nervous, the officers segregated them and they were subjected to a personal search with the help of women officers from CISF and Customs. The search was done keeping COVID-19 protocols in mind.
The officers recovered heavy packets stitched on to the basic garments that the couple were wearing. It was found that the six packets recovered from them contained gold in paste form, weighing 2.61 kg.
“Carrying gold in ‘paste form’ is the new way adopted by smugglers to dodge metal detectors and X-ray machines installed at various international airports, and the gold paste is difficult to detect once it is covered with some chemicals,” the press release said.
Since the passengers were returning from Dubai there were in quarantine for 14 days. They were summoned on August 25 and arrested under the Customs Act, 1962.
Further investigation of the case is going on to nab the main culprit, the release added.
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