Woman held from airport with gold jewellery worth Rs 1.16 cr

MUMBAI: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) DRI on Saturday arrested a member of a gold smuggling syndicate from the Mumbai airport and seized gold worth Rs 1.16 crore from her, a DRI official said.

“The passenger, identified as Farida Hajuri, admitted that she is a member of a smuggling syndicate that routinely send carriers to bring gold jewellery for monetary considerations,” said a DRI official.

The officials said that they received a specific intelligence that Hajuri would be arriving from Dubai and would be attempting to smuggle assorted gold jewellery without declaring the same to the customs authorities.

“Based on the intelligence, Hajuri was intercepted by DRI officers after she had cleared herself through the Green Channel of T2 terminal, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport,” the official said.

Upon her personal search, four bubble wrapped packets containing the assorted gold jewellery, weighing 6.053 kilograms, was recovered from her.

“Further investigation is on to identify the other members of the gang and ascertain how many times they might have smuggled gold into the country in the past,” the official said.