Mangaluru : The officers of Customs at Mangalore International Airport seized contraband goldabout 5.5Kgs valued over Rs. 1.57 crores during the last month.
The smuggled contraband was found concealed in items like tiger balm bottles, oats tins, mobile phone cases, power banks, solar power inverter, iron box etc. The detections this month were in contrast to the usual modes of concealment in items like mixer, speaker, oven etc.
It is also interesting to know that the smugglers have also attempted to smuggle the contraband by secreting about his person.The officers seized some gold chains, bangles and anklets in crude form secreted on persons.
It has been the endeavorof the Customs officers to detect any mode of concealment so as to recover the secreted contraband. Due to several detections of contraband concealed in conventional items, the smugglers arenow adopting new modusoperandi to bring in contraband.
In addition to gold, 232 cartons of foreign made cigarettes valued over Rs.4 lakhs werealso seized last month.
Last year 46.72 Kgs of gold seized and confiscated by Customs has been sold by the authorizedBanks and amount of Rs. 14.25 crores has been credited to Government exchequer.
