Bhubaneswar: There seems no end to recovery of smuggled gold at Biju Patnaik International Airport after gold weighing 295 grams worth Rs 9 lakh was seized from a passenger at the airport today.
The precious metal was recovered from an Indian origin passenger who arrived at the airport form Bangkok today.
Suspecting the movement of the concerned passenger, Customs officials detained him and recovered the gold that was hidden inside his rectum after a thorough search.
As over 7 kgs of gold have been seized from the airport in the past two months, it has now become a cause of concern for the law enforcing agencies to curb such gold smuggling.
Sources said with direct flight connectivity to several foreign destinations, smugglers are trying to explore Bhubaneswar route to import gold which is relatively cheaper in countries outside India.
On June 16, the Customs officials intercepted a youth who arrived from Bangkok in an Air India flight at the airport and recovered one gold ‘kada’ and one a chain. The recovered gold weighed 249.350 grams with an estimated market value of around Rs 8 lakh.
355.120 gram gold worth over Rs 11 lakh was also seized from a passenger on June 15. Four oval shape capsules were concealed inside the passenger’s rectum which was detected during frisking. After opening the capsules, brown colour paste was found inside the pack and gold was recovered mixed in powder form, official sources said.