Guwahati, Jul 15: Two persons were arrested after suspected smuggled gold bars worth about Rs 34 lakh were seized from their possession here, a police officer said on Saturday.
The gold, which was seized during a special operation on Friday, is suspected to have been brought illegally from Bangladesh through Meghalaya, he said.
The officer said that an operation was launched by the Special Task Force in the city on Friday, based on specific information about a gold smuggling deal.
"Our team had followed a car coming from Meghalaya and the driver was spotted exchanging packages with a person on a motorbike near Lokhra area of Guwahati. We could not apprehend the biker then as he managed to escape due to traffic.
"But our team intercepted the car some distance away from where the transaction had taken place," he said.
Cash of Rs 22.70 lakh was seized from the car, with the driver leading the STF personnel to the rented house of the man on the bike in Guwahati.
"When we reached the house, we found that he was in the process of melting the gold bars taken from the car earlier in the house. The driver of the car and the man on the motorbike has been arrested," the officer said.
The gold seized weighed 585 gm and is valued at about Rs 34 lakh, he said.
The police officer said the gold is suspected to have been smuggled from Bangladesh and brought to Guwahati via Meghalaya as such instances are known to have happened in the past also.
"We have registered a case and launched an investigation into the matter," he said.
