Woman with Rs 64,38,960 worth gold bars arrested in Mumbai

The customs officials, on Monday, arrested a woman with gold bars worth Rs 64,38,960 hidden inside her under garments at Mumbai airport.

Representational picture

As per the initial information, the gold bars was recovered from the lady after she was intercepted by the custom officials at the airport.

The woman has been booked and further investigations are underway.

A senior Customs Official explained, "We have made cases last year and collected 60- 70 kilogram of gold with modus operandi of an insider collecting from either washrooms or aircrafts. However, such cases have been drastically reduced at present and the seizure of gold with modus operandi of hiding them in their clothes has again taken a lead since few months. At one side we have no cases made by interception of gold from washrooms and we have had nearly ten cases made where passengers are hiding gold in their clothes."

The officers made a similar case on Monday. In the wee hours of Monday the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officers on suspicion intercepted one lady passenger namely Farhat Unnisa, a resident of Hyderabad holding Indian passport who arrived by Jet Airways 9W 543 that lands Mumbai at around 2.40am from Dubai. Her examination resulted into recovery of Gold Bars totally weighing 2 kilogram and 160 gram. These eleven gold bars are valued at Rs.64, 38,960. All the gold bars were concealed inside the inner garments worn by Farhat. The gold was seized, passenger was arrested and case was booked. Further investigation is in process, " explained an AIU Officer. The Officer also added that another female passenger was caught on August 16 while trying to smuggle gold kept in the check in baggage.

This is the second incident of gold recovery in three days. On Saturday, a total of 1.63 kg gold worth Rs 51.36 lakh was reported recovered from Pune airport from a passenger, who arrived from Abu Dhabi.

-with inputs from Neha LM Tripathi