Bhubaneswar: The directorate of revenue intelligence (Hyderabad zonal unit) recovered 5kg gold in the form of biscuits from three passengers at the Biju Patnaik International Airport on Sunday night.

Based on specific intelligence, revenue officers intercepted the passengers at the parking area. The passengers arrived in the city from Kuala Lumpur in an AirAsia flight around 11:30pm.

"On examination, we noticed that they were carrying foreign marked gold biscuits taped to their feet and concealed in shoes. They also carried some gold in a laptop bag," said the directorate.

Sources said the passengers told the officers that the gold biscuits were given to them in Bangkok by a Thail resident who asked them to hand those over to someone outside the airport. The alleged recipient would inform them of the location upon their arrival, the passengers said.

Six gold biscuits with foreign markings weighing about 5.8kg and valued at Rs 1.88 crore were recovered from the trio. "They were attempting to smuggle the gold into the country. We seized the gold under the Customs Act, 1962," said a customs official.

This is the 15th case of gold smuggling at the airport in the past few months. Various intelligence units have recovered over 11.3kg smuggled gold in the past two months. Sunday night's haul was the biggest in the history of the airport.

On May 4, the customs department's air intelligence unit seized about 300 grams of gold from a passenger who had arrived from Kuala Lumpur. "So far, we had seized about 5.5kg of gold. This, however, is the biggest haul," said the customs official.

Sources said some city merchants were trying to get the smuggled gold into Bhubaneswar. "We have taken the three passengers into custody and are interrogating them on the case," said the official.

There have been instances of passengers coming from southeast Asia being lured by smugglers to smuggle the gold on their behalf since Bhubaneswar airport began international operations.