Two Foreign Nationals Arrested at Indian Airports for Gold Smuggling

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Foreign nationals belonging to Turkmenistan and South Korea were arrested in separate gold smuggling incidents ay Indian airports. The country was recently cited as one of the major gold smuggling hubs in the world.

In the first incident, a woman passenger from Turkmenistan was arrested by Customs officials at New Delhi International Airport for allegedly smuggling gold. Based on suspicion, the officials checked her baggage. A total of 782 grams of gold, valued at INR 21.87 lakh, was seized from the passenger.

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The Customs and Security officials at the Chennai International Airport arrested a South Korean native who landed at the airport from Hong Kong by Cathay pacific flight. Upon checking, the officials found gold concealed in newspaper tucked into the shoes. Each shoe contained two 1-kilogram gold bars. The combined market value of all the four bars was estimated at around INR 1.56 Crore.

Upon interrogation, he admitted that the gold was handed over to him by an unknown person outside the Hong Kong airport, to be handed over to a person in Chennai.