Three held for gold-smuggling bid

Three persons, including an air passenger, were today arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle gold worth Rs 1.03 crore out of the city international airport, Customs department said here today.
"We intercepted John Jeeson, an executive of Celebi Nas, a passenger service company, from outside the aerobridge of a Qatar Airways at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. After conducting his personal search, we recovered 4.175 kilograms of gold worth Rs 1.03 crore from him," Milind Lanjewar, Additional Commissioner of Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Customs (Mumbai) said.
Later, based on the information given by Jeeson during his interrogation, a passenger identified as Wakas Shaikh was also arrested. "He (the passenger) had handed over the gold to the executive," Lanjewar said.

Following this, the financier of the precious metal, Mukesh Pahuja was also arrested from the airport, he added.
"This is the 18th case where a staff working inside the airport is arrested this year," Lanjewar added.
Meanwhile in another case, the AIU sleuths intercepted one Sahul Hameed, who had arrived from Kolkata today and recovered 15 foreign-marked gold bars weighing 1.5 kilograms valued at Rs 36.63 lakh.
During the interrogation, the passenger said that the gold was handed over to him in the flight by another passenger, a Sri Lankan, who had occupied a seat behind him and he (Hameed) agreed to smuggle the gold for monetary consideration.