The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested three men with an illegal consignment of 10.459 kg gold valued at more than Rs 3 crore.
The intelligence agency stopped two people when they were loading packages consisting of car air conditioning compressors into their vehicle at Nungambakkam, on Friday.
When quizzed, they admitted that the compressors had foreign-origin gold concealed within them.
As per the documentation, the consignment was imported from Malaysia through Bengaluru Air Cargo and was brought to Chennai by a domestic courier van.
Simultaneously, another team of officers searched the address where the two were taking the recovered gold and arrested the third person from there.
All the three people admitted their involvement in the smuggling and removal of gold through similar such consignments arriving by air from Malaysia on several prior occasions.