INDIA. Mumbai: The Mumbai Airport Customs seized 980 grams of cocaine worth Rs 9.8 crore from a passenger who arrived by Ethiopian Airlines at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Monday.
The passenger who arrived by flight ET-610 from Addis Ababa had concealed the contraband in his undergarments. He has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody, Mumbai Customs Zone III stated.
In another case, 4978 grams of heroin valued at Rs 34.79 crore was seized from a passenger who had concealed it in a specially made cavity inside a trolley bag. The passenger was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on Saturday.
In July this year, the Customs Department issued controlled delivery regulations, authorising officers to track suspicious consignments of items, including gold, drugs, cigarettes, tobacco, currency, and liquor, among others, to check smuggling and trace the culprits.
Under these regulations, a customs officer can install tracking devices to monitor the movement of suspected consignments.
Gold seized
On Saturday, Mumbai airport customs seized 9115 grams of gold worth Rs 4.53 crore and arrested three passengers in six separate cases. The gold was found concealed in a specially designed jacket, flight, mixer transformer windings, trolley wheels, shoes, and body.
Meanwhile, in the last six years, Indian Customs and other agencies seized 2,774 kg of smuggled gold worth Rs 983.12 crore across the country.
The most seizures were made at the Kannur, Kozhikode, Kochi, and Thiruvananthapuram airports located in Kerala.
As per the data available with the Union revenue department, 585.79 kg of gold worth Rs 263.33 crore was seized in the 2021–22 financial year in 675 cases, compared to 403.11 kg of gold worth Rs 184.13 crore seized in 652 cases in the previous year. In 2019-20, 766.68 kg of gold worth Rs 267 crore was seized in 1,084 cases.
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