Six held with Rs 1-crore gold at Chennai airport

CHENNAI: Smuggled gold, reportedly worth `1 crore, was seized from eight passengers who arrived at the Chennai airport from Singapore and Colombo, in separate incidents on Thursday.  Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said they arrested six persons - four hailing from SP Pattinam, Ramnad district and one from Pudukottai- when they landed from Colombo, Sri Lanka.They were found to be carrying 26 gold bars in their rectum, apart from gold weighing a total of 2.9 kg in the form of white metal hooks usually found on lady’s handbags.The men were acting as carriers, concealing the gold bars tightly wrapped in a black coloured insulation tape, the officials said, while adding that they were nabbed on the basis of  specific intelligence inputs. DRI additional director general C Rajan said, “They said that they had to hand over the gold to one person waiting outside the airport, but we could not find that person.”In another incident, Customs officials said they found two passengers, who arrived from Singapore, carrying undeclared gold.A male passenger was found wearing a belt with a golden buckle made of 350 grams of gold while a woman passenger was carrying a 150 gram gold bar hidden in her hand bag, the customs officials said.