Taking to Twitter, the Finance Minister wrote, "Appreciate @mumbaicus3 for your alertness. Your timely action has borne a stunning outcome. Well done," Tweeted Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman."
The official informed that this has been the highest seizure in a single day reported in the history of Mumbai Airport Customs. The arrested persons include five men and two female passengers on Friday.
In the first case, four passengers of Indian nationality who landed from Tanzania were found carrying the smuggled gold in the form of one Kg bars ingeniously concealed in specially designed waist belts with multiple pockets. A total of 53 Kg of gold valued at ₹28.17 Crore was recovered from the four passengers, as per ANI reports.
Based on the continuous monitoring of suspicious flights and building on the data-based analysis from the earlier high-quantum gold and foreign currency seizures, a systematic profiling of suspect passengers was undertaken on sensitive flights from certain places in Africa and the Middle East, read the statement of Customs.
As per the senior customs officials, during the personal search of the said passengers, 53 Kg of Gold was recovered in total. The gold bars were concealed on their body in a specially designed belt, having multiple pockets, wrapped around their torso.
In another case, based on the intelligence, officers of Mumbai Airport Customs seized 8 Kg gold valued at ₹3.88 crore from three passengers (one male and two females) arriving from Dubai by Vistara Flight. Gold dust in wax form was found ingeniously concealed in the waistline of the jeans pants worn by the passengers, ANI reported.
The three passengers included one lady passenger in her late sixties who were in a wheelchair. All three passengers have been arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
(With ANI inputs)
