Indian custom officials have seized 1,197.7 kg of smuggled gold in the April-June quarter, an increase of 23.2% compared with the same period a year ago, a government official said on Monday. The illegal trade could rise further in coming months as India, the world’s second biggest gold consumer, raised an import tax on gold by 2.5 percentage points to 12.5% in July’s federal budget, effectively increasing smugglers’ margins, industry officials told Reuters. “The duty difference has been encouraging people to smuggle in gold from the Middle-East,” an official with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), who declined to be named, said.
