Mumbai: In a first-ever screening operation by the Mumbai Customs Air Intelligence Unit, officials nabbed a Chennai-based businessman smuggling in gold worth over Rs 2 crore at Mumbai Airport's Terminal 1A early on Saturday.
The gold was hidden in a seat of an Air India flight from Muscat to Chennai by one passenger, and retrieved by another who occupied the same seat from Chennai to Mumbai. AIU has not ruled out involvement of airline staff. A team led by AIU chief Kiran Kumar Karlapu conducted the screening after receiving a specific input from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Chennai, and nabbed Fayas Hussain Shaikh, who had retrieved the gold hidden in a seat of a flight that arrived from Chennai at 8.10 am.
The aircraft, an Airbus 319, had previously operated as Flight AI 908 from Muscat and had arrived in Chennai at 4.25 am. According to DRI officials, it was during this international flight that 32 gold pieces and eight gold bars were hidden in the aircraft. The unknown passenger who alighted at Chennai hid the gold in a cavity within a pipe beneath an economy class seat.
10/08/14 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
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The gold was hidden in a seat of an Air India flight from Muscat to Chennai by one passenger, and retrieved by another who occupied the same seat from Chennai to Mumbai. AIU has not ruled out involvement of airline staff. A team led by AIU chief Kiran Kumar Karlapu conducted the screening after receiving a specific input from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Chennai, and nabbed Fayas Hussain Shaikh, who had retrieved the gold hidden in a seat of a flight that arrived from Chennai at 8.10 am.
The aircraft, an Airbus 319, had previously operated as Flight AI 908 from Muscat and had arrived in Chennai at 4.25 am. According to DRI officials, it was during this international flight that 32 gold pieces and eight gold bars were hidden in the aircraft. The unknown passenger who alighted at Chennai hid the gold in a cavity within a pipe beneath an economy class seat.
10/08/14 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
