As many as 65 gold bars were seized and a person was arrested by the customs department of Manipur from the Bir Tikendrajit International Airport in Imphal on Sunday.
The gold bars reportedly weighed around 10.79 kilograms and are worth around Rs 5.76 crore.
The gold bars were seized from a passenger headed to New Delhi by an Air Asia flight. The passenger has been identified as Wangkhem Ibungobl Singha, aged 33 years and a resident of Manipur’s Imphal West district.
The customs department had information of a passenger trying to smuggle the gold bars to Delhi, based on which a search operation was conducted at the airport during which the gold was recovered. The passenger was also apprehended and charged under relevant sections of the Customs Act, 1956.
HK Songate, the assistant commissioner of Customs Division of Imphal was quoted by Indian express as saying, “As soon as the Customs office received the input, its officials at AIU approached the said person and introduced themselves as Customs officers and enquired whether he has anything contraband in his luggage, to which he replied that the luggage was not his and that it was given by another person to carry it till Delhi for some monetary consideration.”
He said that customs officials opened the luggage of the accused in the presence of Air Asia staff from which the 65 pieces of gold, suspected to be of foreign origin, were recovered. The bars were stuffed in black polythene bags and wrapped inside a blanket.
Songate also said that the gold bars were modified from the original ones for the ease of smuggling.
