VASCO: The Customs officials of the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) at Dabolim International Airport have busted a modus operandi of gold smuggling by a passenger, who had concealed the gold in his rectum.
Additional Commissioner of Customs G B Santimano said, “While performing their duties during arrival of Air India flight at Goa airport from Dubai on Monday, the officers of Air Intelligence unit of Goa Customs headed by the assistant commissioner rummaged the aircraft and apprehended a suspicious passenger. On interrogation, the passenger admitted concealing the gold in his rectum. The search of passenger resulted in recovery of 8 cut pieces of gold bars, weighing 462 grams and worth Rs 12.36 lakh”.
He said, “Smuggling of yellow metal by concealing in the rectum is a common practice adopted by smugglers to outsmart the Customs authorities. We always go through the passengers’ profile and shortlist some passengers, who could be actual culprits among others. In this case, the flight had come down to Goa from Dubai and was supposed to leave to Bangalore. Thus based on passengers’ profile, our officers rummaged the aircraft and apprehended this passenger, who was supposed to get down at Bangalore airport. Initially, this passenger denied having any smuggled items but when we used metal detectors we found that the passenger had concealed something inside and the same was later seized under the provisions of Customs Act 1962” Santimano added.
