Heroin, gold worth crores keep Mumbai Customs busy over the weekend

Mumbai It’s been a busy weekend for custom officials at the Mumbai airport

Mumbai It’s been a busy weekend for custom officials at the Mumbai airport. The department has seized heroin worth ₹34.79 crore and gold worth ₹4.53 crore in seven separate smuggling attempts at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

Heroin, gold worth crores keep Mumbai Customs busy over the weekend

Customs officials said that the heroin was seized from a female passenger who arrived from Kenya.

“The contraband was concealed in a tailor-made cavity inside a trolley bag. The passenger has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody for 14 days,” said a Customs officer.

Meanwhile, the gold was seized in varying quantities in six different checks made over Saturday and Sunday.

In the first case, gold dust packets concealed in a jacket with multiple pockets were recovered from an Indian lady who had arrived from Dubai. The packets weighed a total of 4518 grams and were valued at ₹2.14 crore. Over 360 grams of gold, hidden in the copper coated transformer wiring of a mixer-grinder, worth ₹18.90 lakh, from the luggage of an Indian passenger, also returning from Dubai.

“We also seized four gold rings worth ₹36 lakh concealed inside the wheels of two trolley bags. We were alerted after the image of the two bags on the baggage scanner machine looked unusual,” said a Customs officer.

Meanwhile, in two different instances, gold bars worth ₹72 lakh and ₹42 lakh were seized from Indian passengers; gold dust and pieces collectively worth ₹68 lakh were seized on the basis of intelligence from a passenger who arrived from Bangkok, officials said.