“It is possible that someone had found LTTE’s gold reserve which is now being smuggled out in slow manner,” sources said.

Since January this year, the customs and DRI officials had made 29 seizures of smuggled gold at the Chennai airport. Out of this, 22 were from air passengers arrived from Colombo.

Earlier smuggling gold from Dubai and Singapore to Chennai was very rampant. “But now we see a sudden change in pattern.

Colombo, which is not a big commercial hub and it is also not a location from where gold is available in abundance,” a customs official noted.

There were unconfirmed reports which said that the during the war between LTTE and Lankan army, the defence force had found 6,000 kg of gold kept as reserve by the Tigers.

“Maybe a huge quantity of gold detected had gone to the hands of private persons who are sending it to India,” sources in customs department said.

It is also believed that the gold ornaments collected from the dead bodies of Tamil women killed by the Lankan army during the war could be also finding it way to India through smugglers.

“In most cases we found the smugglers from Colombo brings in 24 carat gold in biscuit or in melted form. We found a Lankan woman carrying an umbrella with its central pole made of gold. It was painted in black.

Similarly another Lankan passenger was found carrying a trolley bag with its handle made of gold.