Five held at Mumbai international airport for smuggling gold worth Rs85 lakh

The airport authorities recovered eight gold bangles, four gold chains and two gold bracelets.

Five passengers who landed in the city carrying gold worth Rs85.54 lakh were arrested by the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Mumbai customs on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday.

AIU had initially anticipated that after the application of VAT in the UAE, the profit margin for smugglers would dip and hence the smuggling cases would reduce. (HT file photo)

According to AIU, the first passenger who was intercepted was Mukeshkumar Dayhabhai Patel.

“The five arrived from Dubai in the same flight and travelled on a single passenger name record (PNR),” said an AIU officer.

“The search resulted in the recovery of eight gold bangles, four gold chains and two gold bracelets. They collectively possessed 3196 grams of gold valued at Rs85.54 lakh,” he added.

In a similar case, one Abbas Mavval was arrested for trying to smuggle 348 grams of gold foils worth Rs9.31 lakh after the gold in his bag was detected by officers at the inline baggage scanning section.

The UAE has been subjected to five percent value-added tax (VAT) on gold items since January 1.

AIU had initially anticipated that after the application of VAT in the UAE, the profit margin for smugglers would dip and hence the smuggling cases would reduce. However, this was not the case.

“The VAT has not had much of an impact as 9.3 kilograms of gold worth Rs3 crores have been seized at the airport so far,” said one of the officers.