Man Caught Smuggling $40000 Concealed in ‘Gutkha’ Packets While Flying from Kolkata to Bangkok

A flyer was caught by the Kolkata customs officials on Sunday for trying to fly to Bangkok with over Rs. 32 lakhs in US Dollars sealed in hundreds of ‘Guthka’ pouches. The Kolkata Customs acted on the information from the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) officials who intercepted the smuggler after immigration facilities.

During the check-in, the authorities recovered $40,000 (Rs. 32,78,000) packed as folded dollar bills inside the ‘Pan Masala’ sachets. Each packet had two ten dollar bills and a huge baggage had such sachets filled to the brim. In a video shared by ANI, an officer could be seen tearing a large packet with ‘Pan Masala’ written on it. The packet had several small ‘Guthka’ pouches with some powdered substance (presumably spices or Pan Masala) in it. On opening it further, there were two dollar bills packed in a polythene bag. The smugglers smartly folded the bills into transparent plastics to hide them in a large trolley bag. The sachets reportedly read ‘Shuddh Plus’.

Earlier, a flyer from Maldives was caught at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, with over half a kg of gold paste concealed in his rectum, reported the Custom authorities. The passenger landed on a Go First flight on December 30, 2022, when his travel pattern and awkward gait gave the customs authorities a sense of suspicion. On putting him on a full-body scan, the officials detected gold concealed inside his body.

They frisked him to find three cubes of gold paste in his rectum. Eventually, customs officials extracted a gold bar weighing 532.21 grams from the gold paste that would be worth Rs. 28.72 lakhs. In the month of just December, customs authorities at Bengaluru and Mangaluru airports seized another four kilograms of gold and registered at least six such cases.

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