A man returning from Dubai was arrested in Chennai airport for carrying about 810 gm of 24 karat gold worth over ₹ 40 lakh in his rectum.
Custom officials of Chennai intercepted the man and found four bundles of gold paste, weighing 948 grams, from his rectum. On extraction, 810 grams of 24k gold valued at Rs 40.35 lakhs as per reports were recovered & seized.
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Gold custom laws in India
According to the country’s customs laws, women are allowed to carry gold in the form of jewelry worth up to Rs 1,00,000 when traveling from the Gulf countries to India. For male passengers, the limit is up to Rs 50,000.
People prefer buying gold from Dubai because it is a tax-free haven, which means you will not have to incur VAT or sales tax costs when buying gold from Dubai.
However, there is no problem for the people to bring gold in higher quantities to the country if they declare the gold jewelry at customs and are also paying up the fixed import duty; there is no limit imposed.
Custom authorities seizing hidden gold in Chennai
For the Customs authorities in Chennai, seizing gold at the international airport is not a new thing. In December 2020, two men returning from Dubai were arrested with bags of gold paste in their rectum.
The seized amount was 706 gm of gold worth ₹ 35.5 lakh that were transported in the form of bundles of gold paste.
In January of this year, a haul of 9 kg of the precious metal was done in a matter of 3 days by the customs officials of the airport.
Seventeen passengers back from Dubai were found carrying 48 bundles of gold paste in their rectums, which weighed 7.72 kg and were worth ₹ 3.93 crores.
Upon further investigating, they found 12 gold cut bits weighing 386 grams and a gold chain weighing 74 gm from the passengers’ handbags which made the overall weight to be 8.18 kg which was worth ₹ 4.16 crores.
