Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru (RJP)

Bengaluru, May 5: Customs officials at Kempegowda International Airport confiscated gold worth Rs 1.19 crore from a passenger. This is the biggest seizure of smuggled gold from an individual this year.

The passenger hails from Chamarajanagar.

As per details available, the man was travelling to Bengaluru from Dubai and had hidden the gold in a bench vice. He hid two gold bars worth one kilogram each and four cut pieces of a bar. They were wrapped in black insulation tapes and were neatly packed in a small compartment made of thick iron sheets inside the bench vice.

Having concealed the gold inside the bench vice, a thick iron sheet was welded and ground over the compartment to cover the area. The bench vice was painted to make it appear genuine. Besides the essential parts, around 7.6 kilograms of iron was packed with the bench vice to hide the gold.

The item appeared to be suspicious when the customs officials scanned it. When asked questions, the man did not give satisfactory answers. The officials thoroughly checked the bench vice again and they found the gold.

In another instance, officials also arrested a passenger flying in from Muscat, who attempted to smuggle in 358 grams of gold worth Rs 11.75 lac. The officials found four very thin strips of gold painted in aluminum colour on the trolley bag's handle and two black-painted gold buckles in the strap, besides eight thin straps of aluminum-painted gold strips fixed inside the bag's metal casing.