India has seized $3.47 million worth of Tanzanian gold and Tanzanian authorities are curious

Reports from India suggest that Tanzanian gold worth $3.47 million has been confiscated at the Mumbai International Airport.
A total of 7 suspects were apprehended, 4 allegedly coming from Tanzania and 3 from Dubai.
The Tanzania Minerals Commission is investigating the report.

India has seized what appears to be $3.47 million worth of Tanzanian gold.

In a single contraband bust, Indian authorities sized 6KG of gold worth $3.942 million at the Mumbai International Airport. They seized 53KG worth off gold from 4 Indians on their way back from Tanzania, while the remaining 8KG gold was confiscated from 3 travelers from Dubai.

The smugglers from Tanzania were caught with the smuggled gold in the form of 1KG bars, which they hid in specially designed waist belts with multiple pockets.

Interrogations led to the four suspects admitting that were given the gold in transit at Doha Airport by an unknown Sudanese national, who had not travelled with them on the flight.

This has led the Indian authorities to deduce that the botched operation is a part of a bigger conspiracy, perpetrated by a smuggling ring.

Regardless, Tanzanian authorities have been asked to be brought into the fold. The Tanzania Minerals Commission (TMC) is investigating the reports, and are keen on discovering what the real source of the smuggled gold is.

Mr. Venance Kasiki, the TMC director for mineral audit and trade, posed the question, “they say they received the gold in Doha, Qatar, from someone. The question here is that how could someone receive goods from somebody they don’t know?

We will have to conduct a thorough investigation to establish the source of the minerals. It could be another form of mineral smuggling using Tanzania’s name.”

The Tanzanian smuggling act, requires a smuggling suspect, if found guilty, to pay a fine that is at least 3 times the value of the content they had been caught with, also the vessel used in smuggling the minerals and the seized minerals will be nationalized.

The Tanzanian government is no stranger to smuggling activities. It continues to deal with this problem, owing to the region’s vast reserves of valuable minerals. As recently as August this year, 930.88 grams of gold, along with Sh97.02 million and an electronic weighing scale for minerals were seized in the Tanzanian town of Shinyanga.