Over 9 kg of gold and 17.8 kg of silver, valued at Rs 2.94 crore, were seized in West Bengal and three people were arrested, an official said on Thursday.
Acting on a tip-off, search operations were conducted by the officials of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at two residential premises in West Bengal's Howrah district and a shop in Kolkata, the official said.
"9.091 kg of yellow metal believed to be gold of foreign origin valued at over Rs 2.87 crore and 14 kg of white coloured metal believed to be silver of foreign origin valued at Rs. 4.20 lakh were recovered from the residential premise of Nilesh Arvind Pawar and residence of Bhausaheb Shivaji Panase alias Mahadeo," DRI official said.
Both of them were arrested and one more person, Dattatray Balkrishn Shinde who was introduced by Panase as his business partner, was also apprehended.
In a follow-up based on the preliminary interrogation, another search operation was carried out at a shop from where 3.8 kg of silver granules of foreign origin and nearly 46 gm of yellow coloured metallic cut pieces of assorted sizes believed to be gold of foreign origin, valued at Rs 1.45 lakh were recovered.
A cash amount of 1.12 crore was also seized from the shop on suspicion that they were sale proceeds of illegally imported gold and silver, the official said.
The accused admitted gold bars bearing foreign markings recovered from their possession were smuggled into India from Nepal, the investigation agency said.
--IANS
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