Police busts smuggling racket, seize gold worth Rs 2.17 crore

Representational Picture

On Wednesday, the Hyderabad police busted an international gold smuggling racket and seized 6.46 kg of gold from the possession of 14 passengers at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. The police said that the seized gold is worth Rs 2.17 crore and it was seized from the passengers who arrived in Hyderabad from Jeddah by Saudi Airlines flight SV-744 early Wednesday.

"The operation was jointly carried out by the Commissioner's Task Force, South Zone Team and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI)," said Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar.

He further said they acted on information provided by a private person from the old city of Hyderabad and made the recovery. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Hyderabad has registered a case against the 14 people who carried the gold and further investigation the matter.

The police chief told reporters that 14 persons were being questioned. He said they had no previous criminal record in the city, but the police were verifying the records of other agencies. However, the police commissioner did not rule out the names of more people cropping up during the investigation.

The police commissioner did not reveal the details about the passengers but appealed to people not to carry anybody's luggage. The police chief appealed to the common public and air passengers not to get tempted by such smuggling incentives.

He said as per the policy of DRI, the informant will get a percentage of the recovery as the reward.

With inputs from IANS

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates