Kohima, Oct 5 (IANS): In the biggest ever haul of contraband in Nagaland, police have seized 290 gold bars weighing 48.14 kg and huge quantities of drugs with a total value of around Rs 29 crore and arrested nine people, police said on Monday.

Nagaland's Additional Director General of Police (Administration) Sandeep M. Tamgadge said that the state police acting on a tip off have seized the golds and drugs in separate actions on Saturday, Sunday and Monday at the narcotic check points at Khuzama in Kohima.

He said that the police intercepted a vehicle in Kohima-Imphal National Highway on Sunday and recovered the smuggled gold hidden inside the cover of gear lever of the vehicle, packed neatly in 29 packets, each packet containing 10 gold bars with the total weight of the gold bars was 48.14 Kg and worth over Rs 22.78 crore.

He informed that this seizure is the state's single biggest capture of the smuggled bullion.

Two persons -- Saurabh Singh (35) and Pawan Kumar (45), both residents of Uttar Pradesh, have been arrested.According to the ADGP, in three separate actions on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday seven persons were arrested from the same spot and recovered 1.84 kg Heroin packed in 88 soap cases and one kg opium packed in 12 packets.

The value of the drugs is around Rs 6.50 crore.

Officials of Assam Rifles and Border Security Force (BSF) said that the drugs specially the highly addictive methamphetamine, contain a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine and various other contraband, and arms and ammunition were often smuggled from Myanmar, which shares 1,643 km of unfenced border with four northeastern states -- Mizoram (510 km), Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km) and Nagaland (215 km).

While Assam Rifles guard the India-Myanmar border, the BSF has been guarding the 1,880-km India-Bangladesh borders with four northeastern states of Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km) besides West Bengal (2216 km).