Soumitra Nandi
Kolkata: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Kolkata zone seized gold bars weighing 87.05 kg on Friday night. The market value of the gold recovered is estimated at Rs.23.5 crores. It is probably the largest ever seizure of smuggled gold in the country, claimed DRI officials.
“Acting on a source information, the officers of DRI, Kolkata intercepted a Hyundai car at Siliguri in West Bengal and seized gold bars worth Rs.23.5 crores. We carried out a search and found that the gold bars were concealed inside a specially made cavity of the car,” said a senior official of DRI, Kolkata Zone.
The agency has arrested the two occupants of the car. While one is a resident of Manipur, the other is a resident of Assam. The vehicle has also been seized.
According to DRI officials, the consignment was from Myanmar which was smuggled into our country through the Manipur border. It was meant to travel to Kolkata via Assam. The sleuths suspect involvement of more people in the cross border smuggling.
“Gold is smuggled in different ways from Bangladesh and Myanmar, but this kind of a recovery is very rare. For the first time, we came across smugglers that hide gold bars inside the car cavity. The car is from the brand Hyundai and is only one-month old,” added an official.
In the last two years DRI Kolkata has seized over 500 kg gold. In December last year, two people were arrested by DRI from Siliguri with gold bars weighing 28kg and worth over Rs 7.5 crore.