Guwahati: Sleuths of the Customs Division in Imphal nabbed two persons including an airline coach driver and a passenger with a total of 19 gold biscuits valued at nearly Rs 2 crore in the international market at the Bir Tikendrajit International Airport in Manipur's state capital Imphal on Sunday.
Acting on reliable source information, officers of the anti-smuggling unit of the Customs Division went to the airport’s departure terminal where the security staff of the airline detained a passenger and a coach driver with some unknown illegal item, a statement issued by the Deputy Commissioner of the Customs Division, Imphal, Rajivkumar Yengkhom, read.
After reaching the airport, the customs officers detected as many as 10 gold biscuits of foreign origin. Subsequently, after follow-up investigation and interrogation by the customs officers along with the staff of the airlines, recovered nine more gold biscuits from the belongings of the suspects after a few hours, the statement added.
The duo has been identified as A. Minaketan Sharma (28), the coach driver of the airlines, a resident of Bhrahmapur Aribam Leikai, under the jurisdiction of the Porompat police station in Manipur’s Imphal East district, and the passenger, Maibam Priyobrata Singh (32), a resident of Nambol Kongkham Makha Leikai, Nambol sub-division, in the state’s Bishnupur district, the statement read.
The total weight of the seized gold biscuits is 3.155 kilograms and the estimated value of the contraband item is estimated at Rs 1,99,20,664 as on Sunday’s market rate. The accused have been arrested under relevant section of the Customs Act, 1962, and the gold biscuits have been seized. Further investigation to nab other offenders (s) of the case is going on, the statement further read.
The Bir Tikendrajit International Airport is the third-busiest and second-largest airport in the entire northeast after the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBIA) in Assam's Guwahati and Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport in Tripura's state capital Agartala.