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Customs officials at Mangaluru International Airport intercepted an air passenger returning from Dubai and seized gold valued over ₹92 lakh from his possession.
The accused passenger, 28-year old Mohammad Ashif is a resident of Ullal. He had arrived from Dubai on an Air India flight in the early hours of Saturday, April 3. He was attempting to smuggle the gold by concealing it in specially designed undergarments, jeans trousers and knee pads. The net weight of the seized gold is 1.993 kilograms valued at ₹92,27,590.
In another seizure on Friday, the Customs officials intercepted two passengers, Abdul Salam Maniparambu and Mohammad Ashraf, both hailing from Kasargod, for smuggling gold in paste form into the country. Abdul Salam had disembarked the Indigo flight coming from Sharjah in the late hours of Thursday and Ashraf had disembarked from Air India flight coming from Dubai from where they tried to smuggle gold by concealing in the press buttons of jeans shirts and gold chains concealed in shoes worn by one of the passengers. Gold of net weight 576 grams valued at ₹26,43,840 was seized.
Further investigations are under progress in both cases.
The combined worth of the gold seized in both the cases is estimated to be ₹1,18,71,430.
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