DRI seizes gold worth Rs 19 crore in pan-India operation; 11 persons held

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized gold worth Rs 19 crore from three locations in a pan-India operation and arrested 11 persons who were part of a smuggling syndicate, an official said on Sunday.

The syndicate smuggled gold into India through the Bangladesh border and diverted it to Mumbai, Nagpur (in Maharashtra), Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), etc, according to the DRI.

The DRI busted the syndicate involved in the smuggling of foreign-origin gold by road and on trains after conducting a well-coordinated operation in Varanasi, Nagpur and Mumbai on Friday and Saturday, as per an official release.

The Nagpur team of DRI apprehended two gold carriers at the Nagpur railway station on Friday evening when they alighted from an express train that started from Kolkata.

The team recovered 8.5 kg of foreign-marked gold from the duo. Following their interrogation, two receivers of the smuggled gold were also identified and apprehended, the release said.

The agency’s team in Varanasi arrested two other accused with the help of local police after a three-hour car chase and a search operation in a forest.

It recovered 18.2 kg of gold from the two persons. The yellow metal was concealed in a cavity made below the handbrake of the car, the release said.

The Mumbai team managed to apprehend five accused on the city streets after they had travelled from Varanasi by train, carrying 4.9 kg gold, it stated.

Eleven persons were arrested in the operation, of whom five were apprehended in Mumbai, two in Varanasi and four in Nagpur, the release said.

The accused were carriers, passengers, handlers, and final recipients of the smuggled gold, it added.