DRI action at Chennai Airport, smuggling of gold worth so many crores, 25 passengers arrested

The officials of the Central Revenue Intelligence Department (DRI) arrested 25 passengers, including eight women, at Chennai International Airport on Sunday night for allegedly smuggling a large quantity of gold.

Chennai News: The officials of the Central Revenue Intelligence Department (DRI) arrested 25 passengers, including eight women, at Chennai International Airport on Sunday night for allegedly smuggling a large quantity of gold. The officials had received confidential information that a large quantity of gold was being smuggled on flights coming from Singapore to Chennai. Based on this information, the officials started secretly monitoring the airport. They thoroughly checked each passenger on flights from Singapore, including Scoot Airlines, Air India Express, and Indigo, and detained 25 passengers for further questioning at the airport. During the search, officials found gold bars, gold paste, and gold chains in their luggage. From the passengers from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, officials seized gold items worth Rs 15 crore in the international market, weighing a total of 20 kg.

In this regard, officials believe that the smugglers must have started buying 22-carat gold because it is cheaper in Singapore and would give them more profit. This is the second-largest gold seizure in a day by the DRI after they foiled an attempt to smuggle 13 kg of gold (biscuits and paste), 200 new iPhones, and 3.5 crore worth of Google phones, cigarettes, refurbished laptops, and 3.5 crore worth of saffron on a single flight from Muscat in September 2023.