CHENNAI: DRI seized gold worth Rs 1.2 crore at the Chennai airport on Thursday and arrested three airport contract labourers. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) received information that gold in huge quantities was being smuggled from Singapore through the flight on Wednesday night. Following that the DRI visited the Chennai airport and checked the passengers who arrived from Singapore at midnight.

The officers noticed three ground clearance staff rushed inside the aircraft and came out after some time. Soon the DRI intercepted the three staff Vignesh, Veera Ragavan and Manikandan and during questioning, they were evasive in their replies and were taken for a personal search. During the search, the officers found they were hiding gold inside their clothes.

The DRI seized 2 kg of gold from three of them worth Rs 1.2 crore and during the inquiry they said that a passenger who arrived from Singapore asked them to pick up the gold from the flight and deliver it to him outside the airport. However, the passenger managed to escape from the airport as soon as the staff were caught by the DRI. The DRI arrested all three of them and are trying to identify the passenger with the help of CCTV.