Kathmandu : Rakesh Kumar Adukiya, who was allegedly involved in the Quintal Gold Smuggling case, has been found to have traveled between Nepal and Hong Kong 14 times in the past nine months. According to government records, he is a Nepali citizen who has traveled to various countries from the Indian capital with Indian Passport.

He was last apprehended with nearly one quintal of gold on July 16th in Hong Kong, and the gold was seized on July 21. . Since then, Adukiya has remained ‘untraceable’ in the network of gold smuggling. The Revenue Investigation Department and the police are investigating his whereabouts.

According to the officers involved in the investigation, Adukiya had traveled to Hong Kong 14 times from Tribhuvan International Airport between the fiscal years 2079 to 2080. During this period, he did not use the Nepali passport. However, he was engaged in bank/financial institutions, share trading, and other business activities in Nepal as a Nepali citizen in the past.

As per the findings of the investigation officers, Adukiya had acquired residency in India and acquired a residency visa on July 3, 2010, from an Indian organization. Another number was mentioned when he renewed his residency on July 10, 2018. How he obtained Indian residency while doing business in Nepal as a Nepali citizen is also being investigated by a police officer involved in the investigation.

According to the travel records, the smugglers last arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport on July 5 from Dubai via Hong Kong. Around 9 days later, they had about 1 quintal of gold smuggled from Hong Kong. Before that, on June 26, they had arrived in Delhi from Hong Kong via Tribhuvan Airport.

Prior to that, on May 26, they had come to Kathmandu from Hong Kong-Bangkok and returned on May 30 from Bangkok to Kathmandu. Similarly, they had arrived in Kathmandu from Hong Kong on January 15 and returned on January 22 after a stay of one hour. On December 22, after arriving in Delhi from Kathmandu, they returned to Kathmandu from Hong Kong after three days.

They had gone to Hong Kong from Kathmandu on November 19, returned on November 25. Prior to that, they had gone to Hong Kong from Kathmandu on October 1 and returned on October 8, as per travel records. As per the records, until October 2022, smugglers had travelled between Kathmandu and Hong Kong 22 times.

66 Cartons of Seized Gold Smuggled Again

A joint team of Revenue Investigation Department, Armed Police Force (APF), and Nepal Police raided a house in Thamel and seized 66 cartons of smuggled gold, known as “Breaks Sue,” on Wednesday. Some of the cartons were found already opened, and gold was extracted from those cartons. The majority of the Breaks Sue packages, even those that were sealed, had been repackaged after extracting the gold.

Around 1,300 Breaks Sue gold bars were found in the seized 66 cartons from Thamel. In one carton, it was observed that 20 bars of Breaks Sue had been hidden. The total weight of the seized Breaks Sue from Thamel was over 400 grams. Before this operation, another carton of Breaks Sue with 1 kilogram of gold was recovered during a separate operation.

“Upon opening all the cartons of Breaks Sue, it was found that gold had been extracted from the majority of them. Even in some damaged cartons, traces of gold were evident,” said an official involved in the investigation. “This indicates that there might be concerns about other cartons seized from Thamel, as the recovered gold amounts to more than 7 quintals.”

During the Wednesday raid, various tools used to extract and conceal gold, such as scales, coverings, and equipment for melting and molding gold, were also found alongside the Breaks Sue packages.