5 held with gold worth over Rs two crore at airport

Five persons have been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country gold bars worth over Rs two crore at airport here.
These passengers, who arrived here from Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, were intercepted yesterday by customs officials.
Three of them were allegedly found carrying 8.9 kg of gold in pockets of trousers worn by them, a customs official said.
During interrogation, they told the customs officials that the gold was given to them by some passengers who had come from international flights, he said, adding that the total value of the gold is Rs 2.28 crore.
Two other passengers who had allegedly given gold to the trio were also arrested by the customs officials.

In a separate incident, customs officials also arrested two passengers for allegedly trying to smuggle in gold worth Rs 53 lakh at the airport.
They had come from Jeddah and Dubai respectively yesterday and were hiding about two kgs of gold worth Rs 53.38 lakh in their clothes, the official said.