NEW DELHI: A couple of Turkmenistan nationals arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday morning with a small quantity of gold — one woman concealed it in her purse, while the other carried it in the form of a gold chain. It seemed like any other undeclared gold seizure for the customs department, until a similar group arrived at the green channel 10 minutes later with each group member bearing gold weighing between 600 grams and 1 kg.Within two hours, the customs intercepted 29 passengers, all from Turkmenistan, carrying contraband gold totalling almost 17.5 kg with a value of nearly Rs 6 crore. Not only was it a biggish seizure of the yellow metal, but it was the highest number of arrests made in a single case.A customs officer told TOI that the passengers had arrived on two flights, with 23 of them coming on Turkish Airlines flight TK 716. Five came on the second flight, a Turkmenistan Airlines service. “The first 23 came in small groups in a span of a few minutes and after the first couple of passengers were caught, we intensified our checking and kept detecting gold with all the passengers,” said Dr Amandeep Singh, additional commissioner, Customs.By the time the second flight landed, customs personnel were prepared for more passengers to walk in with gold. A team led by joint commissioner Anubha Sinha tightened vigilance and within two hours had intercepted all the gold smugglers. Officials confirmed that the gold was in the form of chains, bangles and gold foil.Of the arrested, 22 were women and six, men. “The modus operandi was very clever. A lot of women passengers travelled in the expectation that they were less likely to be troubled,” explained Dr Anees Cherkunnath, deputy commissioner, Customs. “They were banking on only a couple of them being detained, by which time the others would have evaded the scrutiny of customs people whose concentration would be on the first few members detected.”Some group members, customs officers revealed, were repeat offenders.“We have launched an investigation and are trying to find out where the gold was headed,” said an officer. “It is our biggest intervention in terms of passengers arrested in a single case.”

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