Bihar: 1kg gold smuggled from Myanmar seized, woman carrier held

PATNA: A team of Directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) held a 55 year old woman and seized one kilograms of smuggled gold from her possession at Patliputra railway junction in state capital on late Friday night.
Sources said that the domestic market value of the gold, which is 24 carat pure, is estimated to be of at least Rs 52.6 lakh. Sources said that Muzaffarpur based team of DRI was involved the entire operation in which took assistance from Railway protection force.
Sources said that the woman was travelling in coach B-2 of special Rajdhani express which was enroute Delhi from Guwahati.
“The woman had concealed six gold bars of different weights inside her body which she took out before DRI authorities at Patna,” sources said.
They said that the woman was intercepted on moving train on basis of specific intelligence input after it left Barauni railway junction.
“DRI sleuths had clandestinely boarded the train at Barauni took the woman in custody soon after train started moving and made her alight in Patna instead of New Delhi,” they said.
Sources said that the consignment was brought inside Indian territory from Moreh located on international border with Myanmar.
“The consignment is Swiss gold which was probably first smuggled to Myanmar from where it was further smuggled inside India. This consignment was expected to be consumed in bullion market of Delhi. Serial numbers and marks on bars were omitted,” sources said.
Sources said that the carrier woman, a native of Punjab, had reached Guwahati at least four days back for receiving the consignment. “The gold was smuggled in India three days back and finally she was handed it over on Thursday for smuggling it to Delhi via train,” sources said.
They said it was yet not clear if she was acting at a carrier for first or had done so in the past too.
Sources said that the woman was interrogated and was handed over to her family members on Saturday after verification of her address and others details as per law on condition that she would be assisting in investigation whenever required.