US passenger hiding 115 smuggled gold bars in belt nabbed at Delhi airport

NEW DELHI: Customs officials at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Saturday said they had seized 115 smuggled gold bars weighing 3.5 kg from an American national of Indian origin, news agency PTI reported.

The seizure comes amid a recent rise in gold smuggling attempts following the increase in Customs duty on gold from 6 per cent to 15 per cent, officials said.

According to an official statement, the passenger allegedly concealed the contraband inside a specially designed belt and was intercepted by officers of the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) at the international arrival terminal after arriving from San Francisco on May 15. Officials said the action followed intelligence inputs developed through risk-based passenger profiling after the traveller allegedly attempted to cross the green channel covertly.

During the search, customs officers recovered 115 gold bars concealed inside inner pockets stitched into the passenger’s trousers and hidden within a specially designed belt, the statement said. The seized gold bars were of 24-carat purity (999.9) and weighed a total of 3,565 grams.

Senior customs officials monitoring contraband movement said the seizure “directly correlates” with a recent rise in gold smuggling attempts following the increase in Customs duty on gold from 6 per cent to 15 per cent.

“With the margin of profit per kilogram skyrocketing, international syndicates appear to have shown heightened desperation by deploying increasingly complex concealment methods,” the statement said.

Officials said the gold was being smuggled into India as contraband and was seized under Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962. The passenger was subsequently arrested under Section 104 of the Customs Act, according to the statement.