Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NEW DELHI (AP) - Cleaners found a stash of 24 gold bars worth more than $1.1 million hidden in an airplane lavatory after a flight from Bangkok arrived in eastern India, officials said Wednesday.
The Jet Airways plane had landed in Kolkata and was being cleaned before a scheduled flight to Patna when the cleaners found two bags with the gold stashed inside, Customs official Mona Priyadarshini said.
Priyadarshini said the gold bars weighed around 1 kilogram each. Customs officials confiscated the stash and are investigating.
India is one of the world's biggest consumers of gold. The government increased the gold import duty recently, which officials say has encouraged smuggling.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
