Last week’s seizure of gold worth Rs 80 lakh in paste form has raised concerns among Customs officers as metal detectors at the airport cannot identify the yellow element in semi-liquid form. According to Customs officers, they intercepted a Sudanese national at the city airport on January 21 and recovered gold paste of 1.86 kg from him. “The gold in paste form was ingeniously concealed in a pouch wrapped with adhesive tapes kept between the rods of trolley meant for transporting the baggage,” a Customs officer told mid-day.

This trend of smuggling gold in paste or wax form has been going on since 2018, said Customs officers. “Powdered gold is dissolved in orange-tinged nitric acid and hydrochloric acid which is known as aqua regia. The gold can later be retrieved through a chemical procedure,” the officer said. Stressing the need for having better technologies, the officer said, “The system needs to be updated as this trend has become a huge challenge to detect cases at airports like Mumbai where the passenger footfall is quite high as compared to other airports.”