Kerala Teen caught Smuggling Rs 1 crore Gold in her Innerwear

In a sign of gold smuggling rackets employing young women for smuggling operations, police on Monday arrested a 19-year-old woman and seized Rs 1 crore worth gold compound which was concealed inside her inner wear.

Acting on a tip off received by Malappuram district police chief S Sujith Das, police took the woman identified as Shahla hailing from Kasaragod who had arrived from Dubai in an Air India Express flight IX-346 after she emerged out of the airport after Customs checks.

Though the police interrogated her for hours, the woman put up a brave face and maintained that she was not a smuggled gold carrier and was not carrying any contraband gold.

When the police examined her luggage they could not find any gold in it. But when the woman was submitted to physical examination, police found three packets of gold compound which were skilfully concealed inside her inner wear.

Police recovered one packet of gold compound from the panty and two packets from her bra. The three packets contained 1.8kg of gold compound.

Police sources said that the woman had gone to Dubai on a six-day trip telling her parents that she was travelling to the Gulf to attend job interview. She had allegedly agreed to act as carrier for payment of Rs 60,000. It is learnt that it was a friend of her who had earlier acted as a carrier who had introduced her to the smuggling racket.

Police said that the woman is being interrogated to identify the others involved in the smuggling operation.

Police said that the seized gold will be presented before the court and a detailed report will be submitted to the Customs for further investigation.

This is the 87th gold smuggling case being nabbed by police outside the Calicut International Airport ever since it started operations to nab gold smugglers in January.

Though there have been instances of smuggling rackets employing women to sneak in contraband gold, it is the first time that a young woman aged only 19 years has been employed for the purpose.