| Date: |
11-09-2015 |
| Subject: |
5kg gold left in jet toilet at Chennai airport |
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CHENNAI: Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials on Thursday morning found 5kg of gold, worth around '1.25 crore, in the rear toilet of an Air India Express aircraft that arrived at Chennai airport from Kuala Lumpur. It was bound for Trichy and had stopped over in the city .
Sources said the DRI officials acted on a tip that ground-handling staff at the airport were colluding with smugglers and would try to take the gold off the aircraft and pass it on to an accomplice waiting at the airport.
The officials waited for all passengers to disembark, checked the toilet and found the gold in a black plastic bag.
DRI sources said many gold smuggling gangs used passengers on international flights to hide smuggled gold in an aircraft that passengers on domestic flights would pick up and transfer to a third member of the chain.
Last year, an unidentified person carried gold worth `2.26 crore on a flight from Muscat to the city and hid it under a seat. Mumbai resident Fayas Shaikh later boarded the flight from Chennai and was allotted the same seat.Though customs officials here were looking for him in the airport on a tip, he took the gold and gave them the slip. The authorities then tipped off their counterparts in Mumbai who lay in wait and nabbed Shaikh.
Shaikh confessed to having smuggled gold on three earlier occasions.He said a smuggling cartel paid him `20,000 for every successful trip.
Customs officials in Chennai have been on high alert for the past year due to a spike in smuggling of gold due to rising import duty rates.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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