Customs department officials at Cochin International Airport intercepted and seized four crude gold rods weighing 640 gram from a woman passenger who came from Italy’s Rome on Thursday.
The gold, which was worth ₹36.07 lakh, was concealed inside a packet of a creme, which was kept concealed inside a shoe, news agency ANI reported.
The Customs officials said that the passenger was intercepted at the green channel by the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officials based on an input forwarded by customs special intelligence.
On scanning the checked-in baggage, a suspicious image was noticed, and when the bag was thoroughly examined, the concealed gold rods were found.
In another incident, the officials at the Cochin airport seized 677.2 gram of ‘foreign origin gold’ from a passenger who came from Kuwait, ANI reported.
According to the officials, the passenger was intercepted at the green channel by the D Batch officers.
In a thorough search, 24-carat gold in coiled form weighing 498.50 gram was found concealed inside 8 LED bulbs and 4 LED lamps in his checked-in baggage while the personal search of the passenger resulted in the recovery of one 24-carat gold chain weighing 149.90 gram and two 22-carat gold jewellery weighing 28.80 gram concealed inside the innerwear, officials said in a statement.
“The gold weighing 677.2 gram gold was recovered, and the estimated value of seized gold is ₹38.17 lakh,” officials said.
Earlier this week, the customs arrested two persons and recovered gold worth 67.29 lakh in two separate cases. In the first case, Cochin Customs arrested one and seized gold worth ₹40.67 lakh from a family who came from Sharjah, while in another case, a Japanese national who came from Bangkok to Cochin was intercepted and recovered gold was valued at ₹26.62 lakh.
(With inputs from ANI)