Customs officials foil gold smuggling bid at Bhubaneswar Airport

Bhubaneswar: Thwarting yet another attempt of gold smuggling through the Biju Patnaik International Airport here, officers of the Air Intelligence Unit of Customs seized gold worth Rs 21.89 lakh from a passenger who arrived at the Airport in an Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Acting on a spot intelligence, the officials intercepted one passenger of Indian origin, hailing from Chennai, who arrived in an Air Asia Flight No AK-31 from Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Later, when they conducted a search of his personal baggage, the officials found four pieces of Gold strips of foreign origin delicately concealed in aluminium linings of the trolley bags.

Assistant Commissioner of Customs BPI Airport, BB Pattanaik informed, “The recovered gold totally weighed 690.550 grams with purity of 99.90 per cent has been valued at Rs 21.89 lakh (approx). Further investigation into the case is in progress.”

[caption id="attachment_321374" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Seized Gold..[/caption]