124 gm gold seized from Kol airport, one arrested

Kolkata: Customs department officers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport have seized smuggled gold weighing around 124 grams from a passenger who arrived in the city on Tuesday night.

The accused had hidden the gold button inside his garments when he was intercepted by the customs officials. According a source in the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU), a few gold buttons were recovered from the passenger at the airport. The customs officials suspected that the accused might have been carrying something inside his dress. The accused was intercepted by the customs officials at the airport.

Police are investigating if the accused had been involved in smuggling of gold earlier. According to the preliminary investigation, police suspect that there were attempts to smuggle the gold buttons into the city.

It may be mentioned that in a few previous occasions, the AIU and customs seized huge amount of gold bars. In most of the cases, there were attempts to smuggle gold into the city from Bangkok or Dubai. This is because the price of gold is much lesser in both the countries compared to that of in India. The accused was later handed over to the NSCBI airport police station for investigation. The accused was interrogated before the investigators in this connection. They were trying to ascertain his motive.

The Bidhannagar police have started a detailed probe into the incident. They are investigating if the accused had an intention to sell the gold buttons in Indian market or wanted to hand over them to some other persons.