Chennai: Two photo albums spiral bound with golden wires and abacus made of golden rods are the latest innovations tried by smugglers to bring gold into the country to evade duty.
On Thursday, customs officials at the city airport intercepted Seguadam Mohamed Rifai, who arrived from Colombo in a Sri Lankan Airlines flight, and seized 890 gm of 24-carat gold camouflaged as rings, rods and buttons in an abacus, trolley bag, photo album and jeans pant.
We have estimated the value of the total gold seized from him at Rs 25,69,430, said Mr Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, commissioner of customs, airport and air cargo, Chennai. “Since, the objects were attempted to be smuggled into the country by way of concealment and non-declaration, we have seized them and arrested Mr Rifai under the customs Act 1962,” he added.
In another case, customs officials seized 2.36 kg of gold worth `60 lakh from a software engineer couple who reached the airport from US via Dubai in an Etihad Airways flight on Friday.
Mr S. Kannan, 40, and Ms Mohanavalli, 35, along with their daughter Tirupathika, 5, were on way to catch a domestic flight to Madurai when the CISF officials found 2.36 kg gold biscuits hidden inside Mr Kannan’s pant pocket.
A senior customs official said air passengers are allowed to bring in 10 kg of gold if they had stayed in a foreign country for more than six months, but then, they should declare it at the customs and pay the required duty.
“The rise in duty structure has led to passengers trying to sneak in gold in innovative ways,” a senior customs official said, adding that Rifai was carrying gold masked in different forms.
31/03/12 S Sujatha/Deccan Chronicle
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
0 comments:
Post a Comment