New Delhi, Dec 14 (IANS): The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said that it carried out searches at seven locations on December 12 in Punjab’s Patiala city in connection with a gold smuggling operation.

The ED said that the case is based on a criminal complaint filed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), under provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 against Lucky Satija, Surinder Kumar, Manjodh Singh Cheema and others for smuggling gold from foreign nations into India.

It said that the DRI had intercepted two trucks in November 2020 at different locations and each truck was found carrying 200 pieces of smuggled gold bars in its fuel tank.

The combined gross weight of the gold was 66.40 kg with the then market value of Rs 33 crore.

The trucks were operated by associates of Satija, Kumar and Cheema who were transporting smuggled gold to Delhi and Punjab from Guwahati.

The ED said that it found that Satija, Kumar and Cheema were part of a larger syndicate involved in smuggling of gold into India from the Indo-Myanmar border through Assam.

“During the course of the probe, various incriminating documents and digital devices were recovered and seized from the premises of Satija, Kumar and Cheema. The evidence seized showed that the said persons and their associates or family members were involved in smuggling and hawala activities,” the ED said.

It said that evidence relating to the modus operandi adopted by the syndicate in smuggling of foreign gold into India was also found and the details of assets used in money laundering and acquired by money laundering were also identified.