Socks, Cellphones, Cartons: Innovative Ways To Sneak In Gold?

An official said, "There has been a spurt of gold smuggling from across the border in the last few months. In the last six months, the BSF's South Bengal Frontier seized nearly nine kgs of gold being smuggled into India from Bangladesh," reports TOI.

In some instances, gold weighing 440 gm worth 11 lakh was found hidden under a carton carried by Abdul Mohammed and another flyer Shaikh Tahoor had stashed 3 gold bars inside his socks and 4 bars inside his cell phone battery pocket. The gold carried by Tahoor weighed 816gm valued at 20.51 lakh, said the Customs officials.

However, the government measures to control the current account deficit did not reduce the demand for gold in the market. "RBI tried to discourage gold purchases because it doesn't have the utility of other commodities like oil or copper. It mostly sits there in lockers. But when the gold imports through proper channels have come down, merchants have started depending on illegal channels to meet the demand from consumers," said the officials.

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