Satara: In the run-up to the assembly elections in Maharashtra, gold and silvers worth Rs 5 crore have been seized from a car during checking at the Taswade toll booth on the Satara-Pune-Bangalore highway on the night of October 27.
Discussions are doing the rounds that the entire cache belongs to a gold trader in the state. The booty has been confiscated by the income tax department.
As the vehicle left Kohlapur from Mumbai on Sunday night, police got suspicious and stopped it for checking which yielded a big catch. Talbeed ASI Kiran Bhosale told 'ETV Bharat' that an investigation by IT and GST departments was underway. It is assumed that seized valuables belonged to a big trader. Tableed police have taken safe custody of the materials.
The team of officials from the IT and GST departments are following the trail of the big haul to ascertain who owns them, whether they are smuggled through the Hawala channel and whether their purchase is legal.
Recently, a team of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized six kg of gold worth Rs 4.54 crore being smuggled from Mumbai to Pune in a bus at the Talegaon toll booth in Pune. The investigation found gold powder was stuffed in medicinal pills to avoid suspicion.
A container with gold worth Rs 138 crores was also seized in Pune in the recent past. In this case, too, an inquiry has been conducted by Pune Police.
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