Cuttack, July 10: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) seized gold weighing 1 kg from a passenger of Howrah-Puri Dhauli Express at Cuttack Railway Station during patrolling on Tuesday.
The RPF also arrested the passenger Palash Patra (37) of Midnapore in West Bengal, who during interrogation revealed that he was working for a gold smuggling racket.
The RPF team checked the bag of Patra following his suspicious activity during a special patrolling yesterday afternoon.
The patrolling team found three paper packages containing gold. The accused failed to produce documents of the gold following which RPF took him into custody. The seized gold weighed 1 kg whose market price would be around Rs 70 lakh.
During interrogation, Patra said he was carrying the gold for a Kolkata based jeweller. He was working as an agent to reach the gold at the said destination.
The RPF said some smugglers are importing illegal gold from neighbouring countries and sending them to jewellery makers of Kolkata and other cities to make jewellery. An interstate racket is working for smuggling of gold to different states including Odisha.
