Chennai, Apr 11 (Express News ) : Smugglers and their couriers seem to be getting younger by the day. Three people, including two young girls, from Karnataka were caught at the Chennai International Airport attempting to smuggle a massive 4.9 kg of gold bars and jewellery - hidden in their underwear. Customs officials of the Air Intelligence Unit acted on a tip off and intercepted the three passengers, aged between 22 and 27, who were posing as tourists.
According to sources, Vasanth Tejas (27), Anjum Ahmed (23) and Sharvari Jayaprakash (22) from Bhatkal in Karnataka, arrived on Thai Airways flight TG 337 that landed a little before midnight. As soon as they landed the trio, who tried to leave separately, were identified and brought in for a full body search.
While the gold was found only on the women, Tejas was identified by Customs sleuths as the mastermind of the operation. “There is no problem searching women because both CISF and our agency have trained women professionals,” said a customs official, without divulging if Anjum was wearing a burkha, as some rumours suggested.
Hidden in their underwear, wrapped in blackened graphite sheets were gold biscuits and pieces - about 4.8 kg. The gold, valued at around `1.5 crore, was removed. “They were not seasoned carriers and their passports were fresh. They said that they were struggling students but that may be just a made-up story,” said a police official at the airport. They were arrested on Thursday evening.
A similar incident was reported last week when a Kenyan woman was arrested at the Mumbai international airport while trying to smuggle over 2 kg gold jewellery hidden in six underwears.
This capped a busy couple of days as Customs had two other separate seizures on Wednesday - 460 grams of crude gold were recovered from inside a gas stove flown in from Singapore by Khadar Mohideen, and 14 gold bars weighing 100 grams each were fond in IndiGo flight 6E 054 from Singapore.
Six biscuits were concealed in the footwear of a passenger called Madhuraj. Sleuths swept the plane and found eight more bars concealed under the cushion of a seat inside the plane.