| Date: |
20-09-2014 |
| Subject: |
7 women held at airport in one day for smuggling gold |
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CHENNAI: Customs officials on Thursday arrested seven women at the city airport for smuggling 3.3kg of gold worth close to 90 lakh into the country.
Officials said they first nabbed Rani, who lives in Ashok Nagar in the city, after she arrived on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kaula Lumpur. Woman officials who checked her after found 14 gold biscuits concealed in her garments.
During checks of passengers who arrived on a flight from Singapore, officials caught Vadivalagzhi, 48, Pingara, 40, Mariammal, 50, and Zeenat, 38, all of whom were carrying undeclared gold. A customs official said a gang had recruited the four women and paid them to transport the gold to the country.
Two women passengers on a flight to the city from Singapore, via Trichy, Kaniammal, 39, and Begum, 50, were also carrying undeclared gold. Officials said Kaniammal was carrying gold biscuits moulded in the shape of phone batteries and placed in cellphones.
"All of the women claimed that cartels had paid them a fraction of the worth of the gold to smuggle it into the country," another customs official said.
Police said there has been a surge in the number of women arrested at the airport for smuggling gold, with gangs apparently using women to avoid detection. Sources said Thursday's arrests marked the first time that officials nabbed seven women for smuggling gold at the airport in a single day.
There has been a major increase in the number of seizures in the past 18 months, and officials attribute the spike to successive hikes in import duty on gold in 2013 and a huge gap between demand and supply. Customs and police have seized in excess of 200kg of gold from smugglers in the state in the past year. Enforcement officials in Tamil Nadu seized gold worth 13 crore from smugglers in 2013. They have seized gold worth more than 45 crore so far this year.
The demand for gold has also led to gangs reviving the use of sea routes for smuggling. Cartels bring gold from Dubai to Sri Lanka and then smuggle it to India in fishing boats.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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