Alert Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) nabbed  four passengers  for allegedly trying to smuggle in about a lakh micro-SD cards worth a few crores without paying customs duty.

The passengers identified as Abhishek, BB Ranpariya, Bhadresh D Ranpariya and Suresh Jaiswal — arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) from Hong Kong on Tuesday night and were on way to board a flight to Mumbai.

"The micro-SD card cache, used in mobile phones and other electronic gadgets to store photos and videos, is estimated to be worth anywhere between Rs 3 to 6 crores", an official said.

Ranpariya was intercepted by the CISF personnel for carrying a huge consignment of micro-SD cards in his bag and Customs authorities were intimated, the official said.

During verification, the passenger told the Customs officials that he will declare the cards cache at the Mumbai Customs, and he was allowed to leave after an intimation was made by officials to their counterparts in Mumbai.

However, a CISF personnel of the intelligence wing later found that the passenger had changed his clothes and shoes, handed over the cards to two others and was seeking assistance of the airlines to abort his Mumbai journey. 

The two other passengers, understood to be his friends, were also seeking to abort the Mumbai leg of their travel and exit from the airport here.

However, before they could do this, CISF personnel nabbed them and handed them over to the Customs officials.

The trio was possibly trying to evade the customs duty on micro-SD imported cards at Mumbai and hence decided to give a slip to their scheduled travel plan, the official said.          

The Customs officials are probing the case further, he said.