8-month pregnant woman among 2 from Kenya held at Mumbai airport with Rs 19 crore gold

MUMBAI: Two women from Nairobi were arrested on Monday for smuggling 33kg gold bars worth Rs 19 crore. The gold was hidden in their undergarments and baggage, said officials of air intelligence unit of customs. This marks one of the largest gold seizures from air passengers arriving in Mumbai this year, they added. “The two were held separately but are part of the same gold smuggling syndicate.”
In the first case, AIU officials questioned passenger Anzal Abdi Kala (26), who walked through the green channel, about carrying any dutiable goods, to which she replied in negative.Officials, with assistance of women officers, conducted a personal search and discovered 8 yellow metal pieces in her undergarments and a bag containing four pouches with 20 yellow metal pieces wrapped in adhesive tape. Upon unwrapping, they found 28 pieces of gold weighing 11.3kg.
Similarly, woman passenger Saida Hussein (24), who arrived on the same flight, was found with 61 yellow metal pieces concealed with adhesive tape in her baggage. Weight of the seized gold was 21.4kg.
Both were booked under Customs Act, produced in court, and remanded to judicial custody.
During preliminary inquiries both denied the gold belongs to them. Advocate Prabhakar Tripathi for Kala said, “My client is eight months pregnant. Why would she indulge in the wrong thing. She is falsely implicated. Saida requested her to carry her baggage and in a bid to help her she was made a scapegoat.”
Advocate Vijay Adwani for Saida also claimed that his client is falsely implicated as it is ‘impossible’ to carry 20kg gold on the body.