Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) : A team of customs officials found gold worth more than one crore rupees late on Thursday night in the toilet of the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport. It is not identified yet who has put the gold there. According to the information given by the airport officials, the customs team got this information after the arrival of Air India Express aircraft IX 184, which reached the airport late at night.
In the plane that came from Sharjah, a passenger got down at Varanasi airport with a huge amount of gold. Once the routine checking was completed, all the passengers left. But a routine inspection of the toilets revealed the gold. During this, the customs team saw some things lying in a black plastic bag near a urinal. After this, when it was opened and examined, it was found that there were 16 gold biscuits inside the black-coloured packet.
According to customs officials, when these gold biscuits were weighed, it turned out to be 1866.100 grams. Its price was said to be around Rs 1.12 crore. To identify the person related to the gold found in the toilet, the customs team started investigating the CCTV footage installed on the premises. The officials of customs said that this routine check is done after the arrival of the international flight at the airport.
On many occasions, following information gold being brought on the flight coming from Shahjah, checkings are being done and recoveries are being made, officials said. Some travellers bring gold of international quality by evading tax.
The Airports Authority officials said that the customs investigations at the airports would take considerable time. During this time, passengers go to the toilets and hide gold there. The customs team has seized the gold. Along with the CCTV installed in the main terminal building of the airport, the footage of the CCTVs installed on the path going towards the toilet is being examined thoroughly.
