Mumbai: In a crackdown on gold and currency smuggling, the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Mumbai Customs on Wednesday arrested three people including a Sudanese national. According to AIU officials, while two cases led to the recovery of nearly USD 1.27 lakh in currency notes, the third was the recovery of gold worth Rs 40 lakh.
Throwing light on the cases, an AIU official revealed that a Sudanese national Alaaeldin Mustafa Gasmalla was intercepted after his arrival from Khartoum via Jeddah. A search of his personal belongings led to the recovery of 1563 grams of gold worth Rs 39.41 lakh.
In the other two cases the official said that one Arif Dawood Khan was stopped and during the checking of his baggage currency notes in USD 67200 equivalent to Rs 42.80 lakh was recovered.
The second case saw the custom officials intercept Mushtari Sheikh who was also found in possession of USD 60000 cash equivalent to Rs 38.22 lakh. According to the
officials, a search of Sheikh’s baggage revealed that he had concealed the currencies in a jam bottle, bread packets, talcum powder pack and biscuit packet.
