Visakhapatnam: Customs officials at the Visakhapatnam airport detained three passengers who had previously arrived from Kuala Lumpur on an Air Asia flight, on Saturday night on the grounds that the passengers tried to smuggle gold into the country by swallowing sachets containing approximately 80 grams of gold, which were estimated to be at least worth Rs 2.33 lakhs, which were later recovered from their rectums.
The officials identified the trio-Azharuddin, Abdullah and Nayeem who are natives of Tamil Nadu and were planning on smuggling the gold into Chennai. They were later taken to the state-run King George Hospital (KGH) in the city so that the gold could be removed from their bodies.
A doctor in KGH spoke to the media and commented that the officials brought in the smugglers at 5 pm where they were later tested if they had ingested gold and then the gold was extracted by feeding them laxatives. Previously, smugglers tried to sneak in gold into the country by hiding it in shoes, electronic devices or other such objects but of late new ideas like smuggling it in like a paste is also on the rise and the most common of them were gold in abdomens or rectums of the passengers.
