NEW DELHI: Indian revenue intelligence officials stopped a vehicle at Kolkata’s Mohammed Ali Park and seized 30 gold bars late on Saturday night.
The confiscated gold weighed 30 kgs and the vehicle had arrived in the city from Nepal, officials told media.
“We found 30 bars, each weighing a kg each, neatly concealed in two specially designed cavities in the SUV. But we could not arrest anyone because the driver and others in the vehicle fled as our raiding party approached it,” said Durgaprasad Ghosh, a DRI official.
He said the gold seized on Saturday night was valued at nearly 80 million Indian rupees.
In March, the revenue intelligence had seized 87 kgs of gold, valued at 250 million Indian rupees, from the state’s northern town of Siliguri bordering Nepal and Bangladesh.
In Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, customs said they have confiscated gold bars weighing four kgs from a passenger.
Thirty-five gold bars were found taped to the legs of one Faisal Hasan, who landed Dhaka on Sunday in a flight from Abu Dhabi, said customs Assistant Commissioner Shahiduzzaman Sarkar.
The estimated market value of the seized gold is around Tk 20 million, he said.
Market analysts say Bangladesh and Nepal are more of a conduit for contraband gold heading for the huge Indian market from West and South-east Asia.
