More than 24 kg of gold that had been stacked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport by the customs, has mysteriously disappeared. The valuable metal disappeared from the high security vault state the reports, and surprisingly, no one but the custom authorities have the right to enter this area so where did the gold vanish?
On Tuesday a major haul of “confiscated contraband” gold, has been reported missing from the high security vault, of the customs department. The gold was said to be more than 24 kgs, and was under the safe custody of the customs over the last few years. Nobody has the permission to go into the vault area, but the custom personnel and this “weird disappearance” has left everyone stunned. According to the officials, “The precious metal was replaced by a yellow metal.”
The vanishing of gold was discovered when 
on Tuesday carried out a formal proceeding and they saw a ‘suspicious’ packet that was sealed, weighing 1.27 kg and carrying gold in a white cloth. The packet was sealed by the “Air customs seal” stated sources. According to the statement given by a senior custom official “The packet details mentioned it was seized on July 24, 1989, from one Ibrahim Haniffa. The packet was cut open and to the surprise of the officers, they found only a slab of about 500 grams instead of over a kilo of the metal.”
The customs department has registered an FIR. Talking about the “missing gold, Dinesh Kumar Gupta, DCP (IGI) claimed “In most of the cases where gold has gone missing, the precious metal was replaced by a yellow metal. We have sent a notice to the customs department asking for a list of officers who have been custodians of the vault in the past 20 years. These officers will be asked to join the probe.” The total loss of the missing gold is said to be roughly Rs 7 crores.
Last year, in June, the officials of the custom department had reported almost 11 kg missing gold, which amounts to about Rs 2.92 crore, from the high security vault. Another year before this, the customs had also stated that some gold had been replaced by a metal that wasn’t gold. The department had reported “theft of gold on January 16 and 20, April 30 and December 23 in 2014”.
