Businessman swallows 12 gold biscuits to smuggle into India, manages to ‘fool’ custom officials, doctors

New Delhi: Surgeons in the national capital found 12 small gold bars from the stomach of a patient. The 63-year-old man was admitted to hospital after complaining of vomiting and difficulty defecating. His family told the doctor that he had swallowed a bottle cap in anger, after a fight with his wife. CS Ramachandran, a senior surgeon at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital performed the surgery. “We carried out many tests and spotted a lump of foreign object, which did not resemble to a bottle cap,” he told Daily Bhaskar. “Since he is a known businessman, we did not suspect smuggling angle and went ahead with the surgery,” he added. But when surgeons operated they found gold bars weighing nearly 400g (14oz) in his stomach instead of a bottle cap. Doctors, who performed the operation on 9 April told that police and customs authorities had questioned the businessman and confiscated the gold. "This is the first time I have recovered gold from the stomach of a patient," said Dr Ramachandran. Doctors who operated on the businessman said he did not eat anything for 10 days hoping the gold would come out. "When it did not, he came to us for surgery claiming that he had accidentally swallowed a water bottle cap," a doctor said. There has been a spike in gold smuggling since the government imposed a 10% duty on gold bullion imports in April, up from 8%.