Mangalore: Gold worth Rs 8 lac found in flight from Dubai
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)
Mangalore, Mar 5: The customs officials at the airport here unearthed a consignment of gold that was being smuggled into the country through an Air India Express flight that landed here from Dubai on Tuesday March 4 morning.
Acting on information, customs officials conducted a thorough check of the aircraft after it landed here. They reportedly found gold hidden in a bag that was kept by the side of a seat.
The person who brought this gold from Dubai had disembarked from the aircraft at the airport here. His associate was supposed to travel by this aircraft from the city to Mumbai, duly collecting this bag after boarding the flight.
The officials said that this modus operandi was adopted by the gold smugglers in the past too, with several such cases having come to light during the last some months.
It may be recalled that in a similar case reported in October last year, a man from Kasargod was arrested for trying to smuggle one kg of gold approximately worth Rs 25 lac. The man had demanded that he be given a particular seat in the Jet Airways aircraft that had landed from Dubai and was about to fly to Mumbai. The customs officials, growing suspicious at his persistent demands for the seat, conducted a search of the aircraft and found the gold hidden under the seat. The gold had been placed by an accomplice who boarded the flight from Dubai, and the person from Kasargod was supposed to recover it from the seat and hand it over to a person in Mumbai. The aircraft that flies from Dubai to Mangalore proceeds to Mumbai, where it lands in the domestic terminal which has no customs check. Smugglers have hence time and again tried to exploit this loophole to their advantage.