Muzaffarpur: 3 smugglers held with gold worth ₹3 crore

The action came after officials of DRI Muzaffarpur unit got a tip-off that three persons will be travelling with huge quantity of smuggled gold in a luxury car. The car was intercepted at Gaighat Maithi Toll plaza in the district, said officials, adding that it was also seized.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence sleuths (DRI) on Monday arrested three persons from Bihar’s Muzaffarpur and seized 35 gold bars worth ₹3 crore from their possession in a surveillance operation on a gold smuggling gang, said officials.

The police seized 35 gold bars. (Representational image)

The action came after officials of DRI Muzaffarpur unit got a tip-off that three persons will be travelling with huge quantity of smuggled gold in a luxury car. The car was intercepted at Gaighat Maithi Toll plaza in the district, said officials, adding that it was also seized.

“The smuggled foreign-marked gold bars, also having alphabets and numbers on them, were hidden in a specially built cavity beneath the vehicle’s engine. All the three occupants of the vehicle confessed their crime,” said a DRI official, refusing to be identified.

While two of the arrested persons belong to Uttar Pradesh, the other is a Delhi native.

During interrogation, they revealed that another such smuggling was underway, following which the DRI will conduct another operation to nab the main financer and buyer of the gold bars, said officials.

The gold and the car have were seized under Customs Act, and all the three arrested persons were arrested under provisions of Customs Act, 1962.