Customs department seizes undeclared gold, platinum jewellery

Undeclared gold and platinum jewellery worth 74lakh have been seized from 22 passengers from Singapore and Sri Lanka who arrived here in different flights over the past two days.
  
Tight vigil was being maintained at the airport following information that gold was being smuggled into the country by some passengers, Airport Customs commissioner R Periasami said.
  
On Sunday,officials of Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs Department recovered a "huge haul" of 4778gm of gold jewellery and platinum weighing 69.5gm from 18 passengers from Singapore who had arrived by different flights, Periasami said in a release here. The seizure was valued at Rs62lakh.
 
''Passengers had the intention of evading Customs Duty as they did not possess required foreign currency,'' he said adding the officials had recovered gold weighing 755gm worth Rs12lakh from four passengers, who arrived from Colombo the previous day.