Gold worth 1.18 cr seized at city airport

On Friday, when they were checking passengers who arrived from Kuala Lumpur, officials intercepted Faizal Ahamed bin Ashraf (40), a Malaysian national, who was wearing cycling shorts. The officials searched him and found two pouches of brown-coloured rubbery spread, wrapped with transparent polythene, stitched and concealed inside his shorts. In all, 547 grams of gold worth Rs 18.5 lakh were seized.

In the other case, based on intelligence that gold was likely to be smuggled by some passengers travelling on a flight from Colombo on Thursday, a search was conducted in the aircraft.

During rummaging, 23 gold bars weighing 10 tolas, each weighing 2.67 kg worth Rs 1 crore, were recovered from underneath one of the seats. When the officials questioned the passenger who was seated there, he denied any knowledge of it. The gold bars were seized and further investigation is on.