Customs official picks up passenger's slipper and hits gold

Chennai, December 1

Wanting to help a passenger, a Customs official at Chennai airport, picked up the latter's slipper that had come off, only to find it was unusually heavy and had gold hidden inside.

According to Chennai Air Customs, Mohammed Hasan Ali, 23, of Tamil Nadu's Ramanathapuram, arrived from Dubai on an Emirates flight on Monday and was intercepted at the exit by a Customs officer as he was rushing through the green channel and his slippers came off.

The officer trying to help picked his slipper but to his surprise it appeared to be unusually heavy.

"On examination it was noticed that the leather slippers had unusually broad straps having a specially designed cavity in which gold paste packets wrapped with red adhesive tape were concealed," said Commissioner of Customs, Chennai International Airport said in a statement.

Four gold paste packets—two from each slipper and weighing 292 grams—were recovered.

On extraction, 239 grams of 24K purity gold valued at Rs 12 lakh was recovered and seized under Customs Act.

In another case, Sahubar Sathik, 21, of Ramanathapuram, who was the way to Dubai on an Air India Express Flight, was intercepted at the departure terminal while he was proceeding to the security hold area after clearing immigration, on suspicion that he might be carrying foreign currency.

On his personal search, 7,000 Saudi Riyals (SAR) were recovered from his wallet and $7,000 from his hand baggage.

The total undeclared foreign currency equivalent to Rs 6.5 lakh was seized under the Customs Act read with the Foreign Exchange Management (Export and Import of currency) (Amendment) Regulations, 2015. IANS

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.