Lankan held for smuggling gold biscuits

KOCHI: The attempt by a Sri Lankan national to smuggle 14 gold biscuits of 100gm each by concealing them in his rectum was thwarted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials at the Cochin International Airport here on Thursday.

The Sri Lankan national, identified as Altaf Shahul Hameed, 47, of Colombo, was arrested at the airport by a DRI team led by senior officer N.S. Dev.

According to DRI sources, the person was nabbed based on an intelligence input.

"Based on the input, we picked him up when he landed at the airport in a Sri Lankan Airways flight around 8.50am. Though he initially concealed the gold biscuits in his rectum, he admitted to smuggling when we subjected him to X-ray scanning," sources said.

The person has been shifted to the Government General Hospital to remove the biscuits from the rectum.

Based on intelligence inputs, the DRI has stepped up its surveillance on international passengers travelling through the Cochin airport. "The accused will be shifted to the DRI office for detailed interrogation. We suspect that the accused has landed here to supply gold bars to an agent," sources said. (Source: Times of India)