Mumbai: Airport Customs officials seize gold worth ₹1.40 crore; 3 Kenyan women held

Mumbai: The Mumbai Airport Customs officials have seized over three kilograms of gold valued at ₹1.40 crore from three foreign nationals who had arrived from Addis Ababa. The gold was found to be concealed in their undergarments and in the sole of the footwear, agency sources said on Sunday.

Kenyan women

According to the Customs sources, on March 10, on the basis of profiling of passengers, three Kenyan women were checked. “All the passengers are Kenyan national women. One of them was found to have concealed gold in the sole of her footwear, another woman had concealed gold in undergarment and in one case, the woman had concealed it in her body part,” said a Customs official.

The agency is now probing from whom they had procured the gold and who were supposed to receive the consignment in Mumbai.

Psychotropic substance

In another case, based on an intelligence developed by the Central Intelligence Unit of Mumbai Customs, one export consignment destined to South Sudan with declared description as TAMOL containing approximately 10 lakh tablets was intercepted and examined. The test results confirmed it to be Tramadol which is a psychotropic substance and export of Tramadol is restricted.

There contraband drugs worth ₹5.5 crore in the international illicit market were seized. Searches were conducted at Bengaluru, Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) and Mumbai and three persons had been arrested so far, agency officials claimed.

In January this year, the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Mumbai Airport Customs had seized around 9.5kg of gold valued at ₹4.75 crore across eight cases. That included two Azerbaijan nationals, a father-son duo who arrived from Dubai carrying 6,000 grams of gold valued at ₹2.99 crore concealed in their bag. The duo were arrested by the Customs officials.