Kannada actress Ranya Rao was arrested at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport after concealed gold was found in her possession in a gold smuggling case. However, the very next day on the morning of March 4, Rao, who arrived in Bengaluru at 6.30 pm on an Emirates EK 566 flight from Dubai, tried to board the green channel for passengers who have no dutiable or prohibited goods to declare. She was, however, intercepted by officers from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), after the metal detector flagged some suspicious items.
The DRI arrest memo states that Rao falsely declared that she is not carrying any dutiable goods, gold or contraband. In all, she failed to provide proof of the purchase of the gold and failed to declare it earlier, and has been found to have ₹12.56 crore in gold on her person on inspection by authorities. After this, she was taken into custody by the DRI.
International travelers who are travelling with dutiable or restricted goods, have to declare the same at the red channel customs, the customs officers inspect the goods, calculate the applicable duty, after which the clearance will be done only upon payment of the due duty. But Rao avoided this requirement by seeing if he could pass through the green channel, the one that is set aside for those with no such item.
The incident has underlined how very tight security measures have been put in place at Indian airports to check the gold smuggling, a trend that has increased over the past few years. According to the head of the National Customs Agency, authorities have grown more careful when screening passengers, especially those who have recently arrived from the Middle East, where viable routes to smuggle gold from have been discovered. The DRI carried out its investigation to ascertain whether Rao was acting alone or was part of a network. Meanwhile, proceedings against the actor are likely to be legal.
Join our whatsapp group for Latest updates
Click Here for Chhattisgarh News
Click Here for Entertainment News