Bengaluru:
Actor Ranya Rao had drawn up a meticulous plan to smuggle gold beams from Dubai and learn how to hide in her clothing on YouTube, according to a document with the objections of the authorities against her guarantee request. The document has also detailed how she was handed the shipment that brought her into trouble at home.
Mrs. Rao, the stepdaughter of a senior IPS officer, was arrested on March 3 at Bengaluru airport with 14 kg of gold hidden in her clothing, with authorities that suspect a huge syndicate behind the smuggling racket.
The actor, who had made her debut with the Kannada film 'Maanikya' from 2014, also claimed that it was her first time that the gold was smoking.
Read: How actor Ranya Rao succeeded in giving airport protection the slip
During her interrogation she said she had received an internet call and was asked to collect the gold from Gate A from Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport.
Mrs. Rao met a man in a white dress in the tube of the airport and collected two packages from him, which contained the gold wrapped in a “thick Tarpaulin plastic type” material, the document turned out. The actor said that the “unknown person” was six feet long and had a wheat and a rough American accent. During the short meeting he took her to a corner and handed the gold, she told the officers.
However, she had done the schedule well in advance. She had bought a glue tire from a stationary store in half a mile from the airport. Knowing that she would not get any scissors at the airport, she had cut pieces of the tape and kept them in her bag.
After she received the gold in the totty lounge, she immediately went to the nearby laundry room to activate her next plan: hide the gold. She opened the packages and found 12 gold bars and some cut pieces in it.
Read: “Denied the right to sleep …”: Kannada -actor Ranya Rao's bail plea in golden smuggling cabinet
For ideas she opened YouTube and was about how to hide gold in the body through tutorials. She then wrapped the golden bars around her calf muscle and waist using the tape and put the smaller pieces in her shoes and bags, read the document.
She reached Bengaluru on an Emirates flight on March 3 and had passed the airport protection with the help of an officer involved in the racket, the Dri told the court yesterday.
Mrs. Rao was intercepted just a few steps from the airport exit by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (Dri) officials after her frequent foreign journeys. She was arrested after the gold bars were found in her possession.
The actor had made 27 trips to Dubai for the past six months and four of them were within a period of only 15 days.
