The smuggled gold was kept in the form of 20 gold bars.
Customs at Varanasi Airport seized more than two kilograms of gold of foreign origin from a passenger who landed at the airport from Sharjah on Friday.
A senior Customs official informed that on the basis of the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday that a passenger coming after a short stay is involved in the smuggling of gold.
A team of Customs at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport in Varanasi seized 2.33 kg of 99.9 per cent pure foreign-origin gold valued at Rs 1.21 crore from a passenger who came from Sharjah to Varanasi on an Air India Express flight on Thursday.
The smuggled gold was kept in the form of 20 gold bars having marks ARG UAE 10 TOLAS 999.0, concealed in black tape and wrapt under the waist. These gold bars were recovered during the personal search of the passenger.
The accused passenger has been arrested and is being produced before Special Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM-Economic Offences), Varanasi.
Further investigation into the matter is underway.
Earlier on Thursday, gold worth Rs 18.17 lakhs was seized by customs officials at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi.
Weighing 349.5 grams, it was retrieved from three trolley bags of a passenger.
The gold was kept in form of eight nickel-coated rods, concealed in the corners of trolley bags.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)