Two Jet employees among three held for gold smuggling

An air passenger and two employees of private carrier Jet Airways were today arrested from the international airport here in connection with a gold smuggling case, a senior Customs official said.
Three kgs of gold worth Rs 76.44 lakh were also confiscated from the passenger, he said.
The arrested were identified as Mohammed Kunnil Abbas, the passenger, Hamed Lateef Mohammed and Puritan Singh, employed as supervisor and loader respectively with Jet, the official told PTI.
The development comes a day after a traveller and an Air India employee were arrested from the airport and five gold bars collectively valued at Rs 1.27 crore seized.

In today's case, Abbas, who arrived from Dubai on a Jet flight, was intercepted at about 1 AM while he was passing through the green channel at the international airport.
Abbas confessed carrying three gold bars illegally with him soon after he was stopped by the Customs officials.

During preliminary questioning, he claimed he was supposed to hand over the precious metal to an accomplice, who did not turn up. The gold bars, weighing one kg each, were valued at about Rs 76.44 lakh, the officer said.
"We made Abbas to wait for more time and call his accomplice to collect the gold. Abbas called up Hamed, who was subsequently apprehended. Hamed told the Customs that he came to collect the gold at the behest of his colleague Puritan Singh," he added.

Puritan was also subsequently arrested.
"We suspect the trio had carried out similar offences (gold smuggling) earlier too. Further probe was on," the official added.