gold

Myanmar

Bengaluru

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has arrested four men at the city airport carrying foreign-marked 3.98 kg ofbars (worth at least Rs 1.2 crore) concealed in their rectum.The men, suspected to be of Tamil origin, were caught on Thursday, while on their way fromThey arrived in two separate flights from Kolkata and Guwahati, and are suspected to be members of an international gold-smuggling racket operating via the Myanmar border. More central agencies are expected to join the probe in the coming days as it is suspected that the arrested men used to frequently cross over into India with contraband, which changed hands in Tamil Nadu.“We are coordinating with central agencies on how they managed to illegally cross the border with the undeclared gold. We also suspect that they were travelling from Kolkata and Guwahati on fake identities. They were not carrying their passports and other identity documents. But they managed to, and it seems they have been doing this for a while,” said a DRI source.The enforcement agency also claimed that two of the arrested youths arrived in a SpiceJet flight from Kolkata at around 4 pm on Thursday while the remaining two arrived later on another SpiceJet flight after 7:45 pm. The DRI Officials refused to reveal details of the fake identities that were used to buy tickets and claimed that more people will be arrested in connection with the case in the coming days. None of them were carrying a valid ID when they landed here in“All four of them are speaking Tamil with a foreign accent and we suspect they are Myanmar Tamils. All four of them are in their early 20s. They were reportedly instructed to regroup after arriving here in Bengaluru and then head to Chennai by road to deliver the gold,” said the source.