Mumbai Customs department, in two separate operations, arrested four people and seized smuggled gold worth Rs 3.67 crore.
Three of the accused work at the airport in two stores and were allegedly helping the members of smuggling racket to carry the gold out of the airport.
Sources said that on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, the customs officials on suspicion detained a staff of OCS group at the airport, Pradip Pawar.
During a search, the officials recovered pouches filled with gold dust from him. He had allegedly concealed it under his pants.
During questioning, he told the Customs officials that he had received the consignment from transit passengers and was supposed to hand it over to one Mohammed Imran Nagori.
Customs officials subsequently arrested Nagori.
According to officials, Nagori revealed named of another airport staff Anshu Gupta who handed him four pouches of smuggled gold dust from transit passengers.
Gupta, who was getting a commission for this work, was subsequently arrested too. She worked as sales associate with a restaurant at the airport.
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Nagori also named an individual in the interrogation who was handling the entire smuggling operation. Customs officials are trying to trace the handler.
In another operation, customs officials on Thursday arrested Sayyed Mehtab, a staff working at an eatery store at the airport and claimed to have seized seven pouches of gold dust from him.
Police said the seized gold was valued at Rs 2.36 crore.
During inquiry, he claimed that he received the gold from an international transit passenger and was supposed to hand it over another person to take the smuggled gold out of the airport premises.
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The four accused, who were arrested under relevant sections of the Customs Act, were produced before a holiday court which remanded them in judicial custody.
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