BENGALURU: Last week, a man landed at Kempegowda International Airport from Dubai wearing custom-stitched trousers and briefs fitted with gold paste worth over Rs 26.7 lakh. Customs sleuth nabbed him, seized the gold and booked him for duty evasion and smuggling.
Sources said the innovative smuggling bid unfolded after a flight from Dubai touched down on Thursday night. As passengers disembarked and headed to get their luggage, customs sleuths posted in the arrival area carried out passenger profiling and intercepted the man, who was acting in a suspicious manner.
Questioning him revealed something odd about his travel pattern to the Gulf and his reason for choosing to land in Bengaluru. The investigators subsequently frisked him and found something unusual about his trousers and undergarments. Further inspection revealed that there were bands stitched to his briefs and trousers and inside them was gold in paste form. The officers retrieved the bands from his waist area and weighed them to ascertain it was 541.3 grams. Probe is on to find out if the man is part of any international gold smuggling ring.
