Pune: The customs officials on Friday morning seized 3.41kg gold having a market value of almost Rs1 crore from a Mumbai woman at the Lohegaon airport, barely a month after unearthing the modus operandi of smuggling the precious metal in the form of paste.
The arrested woman had come to the Pune airport from Abu Dhabi in a Jet Airways flight on Friday morning, a senior customs official told TOI. The seized gold (24 carat), worth 98.83 lakh, was mixed in several chemicals, giving it a semi-solid paste form.
Bharat Nawale, deputy commissioner, customs, Pune airport, said, "Rehana Faizan Ahmed Khan from Kurla (West) had gone to the UAE from Mumbai on April 24. The way she tried to smuggle the gold into the country was shocking."
He said, "It took us a long time to extract the gold out of the paste. The gold was mixed with melted synthetic rubber. Turpentine was also used in the mixture. Once in a semi-solid form, the gold was packed in several plastic pouches and the women concealed them in different parts of her body."
The metal detectors at the airport could not trace the gold. "The woman's movements were very suspicious and it prompted us to search her thoroughly. Once searched, the pouches pasted all over her body were recovered," the official said.
He said, "We have arrested people concealing gold in the same way earlier also, but this one is unique considering the quantity of gold and the way it was pasted all over the woman's body so that no one could suspect a foul play."
04/05/18 Times of India
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The arrested woman had come to the Pune airport from Abu Dhabi in a Jet Airways flight on Friday morning, a senior customs official told TOI. The seized gold (24 carat), worth 98.83 lakh, was mixed in several chemicals, giving it a semi-solid paste form.
Bharat Nawale, deputy commissioner, customs, Pune airport, said, "Rehana Faizan Ahmed Khan from Kurla (West) had gone to the UAE from Mumbai on April 24. The way she tried to smuggle the gold into the country was shocking."
He said, "It took us a long time to extract the gold out of the paste. The gold was mixed with melted synthetic rubber. Turpentine was also used in the mixture. Once in a semi-solid form, the gold was packed in several plastic pouches and the women concealed them in different parts of her body."
The metal detectors at the airport could not trace the gold. "The woman's movements were very suspicious and it prompted us to search her thoroughly. Once searched, the pouches pasted all over her body were recovered," the official said.
He said, "We have arrested people concealing gold in the same way earlier also, but this one is unique considering the quantity of gold and the way it was pasted all over the woman's body so that no one could suspect a foul play."
04/05/18 Times of India
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