Man caught with 1kg gold at airport

Customs officials who identified the man as Abdullah Mohammad Riyaz, said he had taken a flight from Chennai to Dubai only to stay there for three hours before he took another flight back to Hyderabad.

The sources said Riyaz, who had travelled abroad at least 100 times obviously to carry out similar operations, was found carrying eight gold biscuits weighing 116 gm each in his rectum and four similar gold biscuits in his socks, totalling 1.4 kg with a market value of Rs4 million.

Stating that they were still interrogating Riyaz, the Customs officials said they had concrete tip-off about the smuggling attempt. “We intercepted him when he tried to exit through the Green Channel,” the officials said, adding that after they recovered the gold biscuits from the socks, Riyaz said that was all he had on his person.

The Customs officials, however, got suspicious when they saw Riyaz’s discomfiture while sitting, which prompted them to conduct an intense body search leading to the recovery of the gold biscuits from his rectum.

With the duty payable on the gold amounting to Rs1 million, the officials arrested him under Sections 135 of the Customs Act since the duty evaded was more than Rs500,000.