Mangaluru : The customs officials recovered four gold bars weighing a kg each from the toilet of a flight that arrived at Mangaluru International Airport from Dubai on Saturday. The gold is worth Rs 1.22 crore.
The officials also recovered two gold biscuits worth Rs 7 lakh from another passenger who arrived in the same flight during passenger profiling leaving customs with a gold haul worth Rs 1.29 crore.
The gold bars were recovered from the toilet of Jet Airways flight 9W531 that arrived at MIA at 7.55am, 47 minutes behind schedule. “The gold bars were stashed in the toilet and kept there to be picked up by a local mule when the flight took off from MIA to Mumbai on its domestic run,” the source said.
The second haul came from thorough profiling of passengers at the arrival lounge of MIA, sources said. “Since two international flights operated by Jet Airways and Spice Jet arrived almost at the same time, the arrival hall was packed with 450-odd passengers,” the sources said, adding customs officials managed to spot a passenger who was acting nervously. He was picked up and subjected to thorough frisking using a metal detector. The passenger, a resident of Bhatkal admitted to stashing two gold biscuits weighting 227 grams in his rectum and the same was recovered from him and seized, sources said.
“Today’s haul, in terms of value is what we normally achieve in a month,” the sources said, adding investigation is on to trace the passenger who stashed the gold bars in the toilet of the aircraft.