Madurai

The sleuths stepped up surveillance on the coastal districts in the southern part of the state following a specific tip off. Late on December 31 night a DRI special team intercepted a SUV at Uchipuli Railway Station gate near Mandapam. On interrogation, the driver of the car Mujibur Rahman (31), admitted to the fact that he was transporting smuggled gold bars in the car. When the car was checked thoroughly, the sleuths found a package containing gold underneath the driver’s seat. They found 87 gold bars with foreign markings of 99.9 per cent purity. Each bar weighed 100 grams totalling to 8.7 kg. The seized yellow metal was valued at Rs 2.44 crore in the market. The driver revealed that he had picked the gold from a fishing boat at Mandapam and the gold was smuggled from Sri Lanka.  As the gold bars have been smuggled illegally into India, the DRI officials seized the same under the provisions of the Customs  Act 1962. They arrested Mujibur Rahman and produced him before the Judicial Magistrate Court in Madurai. He was remanded on Sunday.