A 42-year-old man who claims to work for "a Sri Lankan government ministry" was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport this week for attempting to smuggle some gold via his own rectum, BBC reports. Airport authorities had noticed the man "walking suspiciously" before promptly discovering that he did indeed have 400g of gold uncomfortably stored in his rectum.
More than 70 people have been arrested in 2015 alone for similar methods of botched gold smuggling in Sri Lanka, with the Guardian noting that these would-be smugglers usually nab the gold from locations where the price is hella cheap and trade restrictions are not an issue. The gold is then taken to India, the recently crowned "largest gold consumer in the world."
"A fall in prices of gold in the recent months has been one of the reasons for the increased demand for gold in India," the minister of state finance, Jayant Sinha, tells theEconomic Times. According to a recent GFMS Gold Survey report cited by Sinha, India has officially surpassed China as the world’s leading gold buyer.
Just, you know, avoid rectal storage.
