The passenger, Vafsamaraikyar Habeer of Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, who had kept the gold bars in his laptop bag when he embarked the flight, had planned to tape the gold bars on his leg inside the toilet just before the flight landed at Kochi.
However, his plans went haywire as he dozed off and woke up after the flight reached Kochi airport at 0520 AM yesterday and the passengers had started disembarking, customs sources said.
Customs officials suspect that the plan was that the gold bars would be taken out after the flight reached Chennai when the passengers are not screened. However, a fellow passenger is said to have tipped-off the customs officials who conducted a search and made the seizure.
The passenger, who was arrested before he left Kochi airport, was booked under the Customs Act, 1962.
Earlier, customs officials had seized 18 kg of gold bars worth over Rs 4 crore on different occasions from the airport.