Nepal police Wednesday seized 35 kg of gold being smuggled from China to India, the largest haul ever by authorities.
Police discovered the 35 gold bars in a container truck at Tatopani, one of the busiest trading points between Nepal and China, located 120km north of the capital Kathmandu.
The shipment is believed to be worth $2 million on the black market and was bound for India, where demand for the precious metal is soaring.
Authorities said they trailed the truck following a tip off.
“We followed the vehicle from the Tibetan border for several hours and seized the gold which was hidden inside a container,” superintendent Uttam Kumar Karkee told AFP. Three suspects were arrested.
The seizure on Wednesday was the biggest ever by police in Nepal in an increasingly lucrative cross-border smuggling racket, authorities said.
Last month, police seized 16 kg of gold in Kathmandu from neighboring Tibet.
“We have found that a huge amount of gold is smuggled from Tibet to India via Nepal,” Nepal Police spokesman Nawaraj Silwal said.
