Vijayawada Customs seizes gold worth Rs 6.4 cr

Vijayawada: The Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate, Vijayawada has busted smuggling of gold from Dubai and Sri Lanka into Andhra Pradesh. The commssionerate officials on Friday intercepted a car coming from Chennai to Vijayawada near Bollapalli toll plaza and noticed one person was carrying 4.3 kg gold and seized it. It appears that the foreign markings on the gold were deliberately erased to camouflage the smuggled nature of the gold.

As a follow up to this operation, the officers conducted a search operation at the carrier’s premises and recovered 6.8 kg gold jewellery along with foreign currency (Kuwait Dinar, Qatar Riyal and Oman Rial etc.,) worth Rs 1.5lakh. The total weight of the gold is 11.1 kg. worth Rs 6.40 crore.

The carrier of smuggled gold was arrested under provisions of the Customs Act 1962. The accused has been remanded to judicial custody by the Court of Special Judge to try economic offences, Visakhapatnam Customs authorities continue to face a difficult task in tracking down syndicates behind smuggled gold, as the gold smuggled into India is immediately defaced and melted to remove the foreign markings, before the it is moved to interior areas. In the years 2022-23 and 2023-24, the Vijayawada Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate made seizures of smuggled gold to the tune of 70 kg valued at about Rs 40 crore, said R Sriram, principal commissioner, Customs (Preventive) in a press release on Saturday.