Dr B Thomas (Special correspondent)
Officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on tuesday busted a gold smuggling racket and arrested a 30-year old passenger carrying 1.5 kgs of gold paste worth Rs.50 lakh.
Based on a tip off,a team of officials rushed to the airport and confronted the passenger who landed from Dubai .
The police checked the phone he was holding and found the gold paste concealed in the cover of the mobile phone .
The accused hailing from Karnataka and Kerala border area had gone to Dubai on visitors visa to search for the job.
sources said that the accused working as career in the racket and was paid tickets and some money for the job.
The accused was taken into custody for further investigations.
In a similar operation the DRI officials busted currency racket and arrested a man boarding a Dubai flight with a bag containing currency worth Rs.27 lakh in the form of dirhams and USD on last Saturday.
Based on intelligence inputs,a team of officials caught the man from Bengaluru who said that he was taking the cash in the bag he was carrying to start a business in Dubai with business visa .
However upon checking the background the accused passenger did not have any business background.
The officials suspect that he is part of the hawala racket and further investigating .
The maximum number of currency to be carried is Rs.3 lakh where as the accused passenger who had passed the departure check with a bag full of currency bundles.
The CISF Personnel who were deployed at the departure check point are concerned about the banned items including weapons and explosive items and not concerned about the currency , sources,said.
