Eight men were arrested with 504 “foreign” gold bars, suspected of having been smuggled into India from Myanmar.
New Delhi:
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the country’s leading anti-smuggling intelligence, investigations and operations agency, stopped an international gold smuggling scam on Friday when it arrested eight passengers at the New Delhi train station with 504 gold biscuits, with foreign brands. hidden in their clothes.
The gold bars, valued at 43 million rupees, were found hidden in specially made cloth vests by the eight men, who were traveling on the Dibrugarh-New Delhi Rajdhani Express using fake Aadhaar cards, DRI’s deputy director said.
The agency stated that the arrests were made on the basis of very specific information gathered by detectives from the Delhi Zonal Unit over months.
“Intelligence data indicates that these gold bars were smuggled into India from Myanmar through the international land border at Moreh in Manipur, and the smuggling syndicate, which operates out of Guwahati, was trying to get rid of the smuggling in Delhi , Kolkata and Mumbai, “the agency said. official statement read.
The seized gold bars, which were arranged to spell DRI-DZU and yesterday’s date (August 28, 2020) in large letters, are 99.9% pure and collectively weigh 83.6kg.
According to the agency, the union identifies and hires people in need from various states to act as carriers of the contraband gold. “Smugglers use air, land and rail routes to transport smuggled gold locally,” the statement said.
The eight men were arrested under the Customs Act of 1962 and placed in judicial custody. More research is underway.
There have been numerous cases where the Customs Department detained passengers with smuggled gold at international airports, but this was one of the few cases where the suspects were detained at a train station.
Although gold smuggling into India has decreased due to Covid-related travel restrictions, cases have started to surface again with the resumption of international flights, albeit limited.
More recently, on Friday, two people were arrested in connection with the seizure of 1.16 kg of 24-karat gold worth 64 lakh by Customs at Chennai airport.
(With inputs from agencies)
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