PUNE: Innovation is the name of the game when it comes to gold smuggling — the more ingenious the method, the better.Till recently, converting gold into paste, powder or liquid form and even hiding it inside armrests of aircraft seats or underneath life jackets was the preferred way to bring the shiny metal illegally into the country from abroad.But now gold ‘carriers’ have hit upon a novel way to smuggle in the ingot — concealed inside aircraft washbasin.On Thursday, Pune customs officials recovered 4kg gold bars, worth Rs 1.29 crore, hidden inside the washbasin of the rear toilet of Dubai-Pune SpiceJet flight The haul is one of the biggest by Pune customs in recent years and the first this year so far. Officials said the gold bars were covered with black adhesive tapes.“The space underneath the aircraft washbasin is covered but can be opened. The person who concealed the gold knew how to open the cover and close it again. There have been several instances of gold being recovered from this particular flight, hence we were alert,” an official told TOI.“It is known to all that the SpiceJet flight from Dubai turns into a domestic flight after it lands here and proceeds towards its onward journey to Bengaluru,” the official said. This makes the job of the ‘carrier’ easier.The modus operandi involves hiding the gold at a specific spot on the flight and then informing an associate who takes the same flight to Bengaluru, collects it during the course of the flight and exits the Bengaluru airport. No customs checks are carried out on domestic routes, the official pointed out.“While no person has been arrested yet, we suspect that the gold was meant for someone else. We had earlier investigated cases of gold being recovered from the aircraft but no connivance of the airline staff had come to fore,” the official said, adding that the bars were marked.Earlier, on November 18, around 2.70kg gold, worth Rs90 lakh, was recovered from a passenger who arrived on the same flight from Dubai. The gold was in the form of a paste, packed in polythene, and wrapped around the waist of a passenger.Officials said some people found with gold are willing carriers but there have been instances when flyers were unaware that they were carrying gold. “Last year, we were able to tackle the gold paste modus operandi. This year, we think, there will be more attempts to smuggle in gold,” the official said.In the same month, the customs authorities arrested a flyer at the city airport for trying to smuggle rhodiumplated and oxidized gold worth Rs 11 lakh into the country from Dubai. The passenger had arrived at the Pune airport on a SpiceJet flight. Apart from two oxidized gold biscuits, which had been cut into four small pieces, the authorities also recovered two more round-shaped gold pieces, which had carvings like that on currency coins, from the flyer. In October, Customs officials at the Pune airport caught a woman attempting to illegally bring gold, in the form of ornaments and buttons, into the country.

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