7 kg gold, 11 crore seized, bizman and 2 Koreans held

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths on Thursday arrested five persons, including a city-based businessman and two Korean nationals, and seized seven kilos of smuggled gold and Rs 11 crore cash.

They were nabbed from a hotel in Mylapore after DRI Chennai zonal unit received information that the businessman would receive smuggled gold from foreign nationals staying at the hotel. 

DRI officers said that the team monitored the hotel on Thursday morning and intercepted a businessman who was leaving the premises with a leather bag. On examining the bag, they found gold bars weighing six kilos which had foreign markings.

During questioning, the man admitted that the gold was smuggled through Chennai airport by two foreign nationals, who were staying at the same hotel.

The officers then nabbed two South Korean nationals, who confessed that they had arrived at the city airport with the gold on Wednesday night. Based on the information given by them, the officers searched multiple premises in Chennai. During the raid in a shop among other places, they seized one more kilo gold and Rs 11.16 crore in cash. They also arrested two assistants of the businessman.

The DRI said the total value of seized gold was about Rs 2.20 crore. During interrogation, the Korean nationals said that they were smuggling the gold from Hong Kong. The DRI noted that businessman had been receiving smuggled gold in a similar manner through some other carriers, too.

DRI believe that Rs 11.16 crore recovered by the officers was sale proceeds of the smuggled gold and added they had planned to remit the amount abroad through hawala channels.