Over 3 kg smuggled gold seized at Hyderabad airport, 2 held

During interception, it was found that a polythene cover containing two pouches of hard metal and four packets of paste suspected to be gold was kept in the dustbin placed inside the cabin of the COVID-19 testing centre, a release from Customs said.

Smuggled gold weighing 3.14 kg was seized at the international airport here on Thursday and two people -- a passenger and an employee of a COVID-19 testing facility at the airport were arrested here in this connection. Based on the information that the gold is being smuggled out of the airport, the Officers of Air Intelligence Unit, Hyderabad Customs, identified and intercepted a passenger, who arrived from Dubai and an employee of an agency, which provides the services for testing COVID-19 samples. During interception, it was found that a polythene cover containing two pouches of hard metal and four packets of paste suspected to be gold was kept in the dustbin placed inside the cabin of the COVID-19 testing center, a release from Customs said. The employee, during interrogation, admitted that those pouches were handed over to him by the passenger during sample collection for the COVID-19 test. He further said that he was supposed to sneak out the pouches discreetly through the Customs area for which he was offered a handsome consideration. After conducting the standard tests, the material was certified to be gold weighing 3.14 kg and valued at approximately Rs 1.65 crore. Further investigation is on, the release said.