Mangaluru: The officers of customs at Mangalore International Airport seized about 5.5 kg of gold valued over Rs 1.57 crore during the last month.

This time, the gold was being tried to be smuggled concealed in Tiger Balm jars, oats tins, mobile phone cases, power banks, solar power inverter, iron box etc.

With the Customs sleuths thwarting smuggling bid in various forms, the smugglers are finding out newer ways to conceal gold and smuggle and interestingly, this time they had even tried to conceal gold in crude form on a person. Even then, some gold chains, bangles and anklets in crude form concealed on persons was identified by the sleuths..

In addition to gold, 232 cartons of foreign made cigarettes valued over Rs 4 lac were also seized last month.

Last year 46.72 kg of gold seized and confiscated by the customs has been sold by the authorized banks and an amount of Rs 14.25 crore has been credited to government exchequer.