DRI seizes gold bars worth over Rs 7.5 crore

The gold bars seized by the DRI in Siliguri on Thursday. Telegraph picture

TT, Siliguri, Dec.18: Two Nepal nationals and two others from north India were arrested by the directorate of revenue intelligence from Matigara last night with gold bars weighing 28kg and worth over Rs 7.5 crore were seized from them.

Officials said the gold bars were being stuffed in chambers built in a car's body when the four were caught.

The youths were produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate's court here today and remanded in jail custody for 14 days.

Sources said that acting on a tip-off, a DRI team raided a stretch on NH31 near Uttarayon last night and found the four youths transferring the gold bars, which they had planned to take to Delhi through Calcutta, from one car to another.

"The residents of Nepal carried the gold in an SUV and entered India through Panitanki, 40km here, yesterday. They were supposed to deliver the gold to two others, who are from north India, at Matigara," Ratan Banik, a lawyer representing DRI, said.

"Around 10.30pm, the Indian youths reached a designated spot in a WagonR. While they were transferring the gold bars from the SUV to the WagonR, DRI officials reached the spot and arrested them. The officials also seized the gold and the two cars."

The arrested persons are, Ang Karma Sherpa from Solukhumbu and Sribishnu Phuyel from Kathmandu, both in Nepal, and Shyamsundar Mishra and Sanjay Mishra, residents of Delhi and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh, respectively. All the four are aged between 25 and 30 years.

"In the raid, 41 gold bars of different shapes weighing between 350gm and 1kg and worth around Rs 7.67 crore were seized. There were markings of at least three countries on them," Banik said. The gold weighs 28kg.

DRI officials have learnt that Shyamsundar and Sanjay had planned to take the gold bars to Delhi through Calcutta. "They had planned to take the gold in the WagonR. Small concealed chambers were made inside the car's body where the bars, wrapped in carbon paper and tied with black tapes, were kept. The smugglers seem to have adequate knowledge as by wrapping gold bars in carbon paper one can evade getting caught by X-ray machines," said a DRI source.

"Last year, we had arrested two persons from a train heading to Calcutta from Guwahati and recovered 14kg gold. Sunday, we seized 6kg gold from two others. Yesterday's haul was major, both in terms of quantity and price," the source added.

Such regular seizure of gold suspected to be smuggled into India from Southeast Asian countries, has the intelligence wings worried.

"It seems smugglers are trying to revive the old route on India-Nepal border near Siliguri to smuggle gold into our country. Smuggled gold is assembled in Nepal from countries like Australia, Switzerland and Thailand and taken to India," an official said. "From here, it is smuggled to north India and other parts of the country."