Mangaluru, Jun 9: The customs officers of Air Intelligence Unit and the batch of officers at the Mangaluru International Airport have busted a modus operandi of gold smuggling by three passengers by way of concealment in rectum. The three passengers had arrived from Dubai on Thursday by Air India and Jet Airways flights.
M Subramanyam, customs commissioner, said that the officers on careful profiling and screening shortlisted the three passengers who were subjected to thorough interrogation. During the interrogation, the officers found that the contraband gold in the form of rectangular cut pieces of 1 kg gold bars totally weighing 1660.750 gms valued about Rs 49.15 lakh was packed in carbon paper and black coloured adhesive tape and in turn brought by way of concealment in rectum. All the three passengers hail from Ulhasnagar, Thane in Maharashtra.
Out of the three, two passengers who had worked as a gang were arrested and produced before SG Gangadhar, principal civil judge (senior division) and chief judicial magistrate, Mangaluru, who remanded them to judicial custody.
Due to several detections of contraband concealed in conventional items at Mangaluru Airport, the smugglers are now adopting new modus operandi to smuggle the contraband by way of body concealment to hoodwink the department.
However, the officers equipped with advance passenger information are able to profile and zero in on suspected passengers, who are subjected to detailed inquiry and examination, said the commissioner. Investigation is under progress.
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