A mobile phone-shaped gold bar weighing 1.5 kilo was recovered from a washroom at IGI Airport on Friday after a CISF team learnt that a smuggler had arrived from Dubai.
While the prime suspect managed to give security personnel the slip, his alleged help at the airport — a ground handling staff — was arrested after he was identified from CCTV footage.
A shift in-charge of Central Industrial Security Force Surveillance and Intelligence had learnt around 5 am on Friday that a passenger arriving from Dubai by flight number SG-012 was smuggling in gold.
A team was rushed and it observed a passenger hurriedly emerging from a washroom.
It was then learnt that a packet containing a mobile phone-like item was lying unattended in that washroom.
However, before the suspected passenger could be apprehended, he had left the terminal building and sped away in a prepaid taxi. The suspected item, meanwhile, was found to be a gold bar weighing 1.5 kilo and shaped like a mobile phone.
A police officer said the bar was made of compact gold and was given the appearance of a mobile phone to deceive security.
“About a fortnight ago, we had seized a similar gold bar in the form of a mobile phone and that weighed over a kilo. This has become the new modus operandi to smuggle in gold without raising suspicion,” the officer told this newspaper.Meanwhile, the CCTV footage of the area was scanned.
It was leant that the suspect was accompanied by a man who was identified as Ansar, a ground handling staff and a native of Thrissur in Kerala. Ansar was called to the airport and questioned.
Officials said he confessed his involvement in smuggling gold and even revealed the identity of the absconding alleged smuggler. The details have been shared with the Customs Department and he would be nabbed soon, said the officer.
