Wheelchair-bound passenger held for smuggling gold at Delhi airport

During interrogation, he admitted carrying gold. Four gold bars were kept in the pockets of a specially prepared short he was wearing under his trousers and tied up with a rope.

Customs officials on Saturday arrested a 63-year-old man who was trying to use wheelchair as cover to smuggle gold at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA).

The gold bars

The passenger had arrived from Dubai by a Jet airways flight and was stopped by customs officials after the green channel.

“We had information about two passengers smuggling gold from Dubai. These two passengers, one was on wheelchair and the other assisting him, were zeroed in. It was a sensitive case as the passenger was on wheelchair. He was walking fine when he was asked to and that raised our suspicion,” said a customs official.

During interrogation, he admitted carrying gold. Four gold bars were kept in the pockets of a specially prepared short he was wearing under his trousers and tied up with a rope.

The passenger, who is from Pondicherry, was supposed to travel to Chennai.

“A total of 3.5 kgs of gold worth R 93 lakh was recovered from them. Both passengers were arrested under the Customs Act,” the official added.

Customs officials said this was the first case of a passenger misusing a wheelchair for smuggling. But officials were instructed not to harass wheelchair-bound passengers in the name of checking.

On Thursday, a passenger coming from Riyadh and an airport employee were arrested for smuggling gold. The passenger had smuggled 2.7 kgs of gold worth R80 lakh and handed it over to the employee in the washroom.

The employee was supposed to smuggle it out of the airport but both were caught after the green channel.