Police seized 88kg smuggled gold—the biggest haul of the precious yellow metal ever confiscated—in the Capital in the wee hours of Monday.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), Teku, confiscated the precious yellow metal worth over Rs 340 million at around 2am from Chhetrapati.

Police have also arrested Manoj Adhikari of Makawanpur, who was driving a Tata Storme jeep which was ferrying the gold.

Adhikari in his statement to police said the gold was smuggled from Kerung border point of China into Rasuwa.

“The owner of the gold is a Chinese who has some kind of connection in Nepal,” said SSP Dibesh Lohani, chief of the MPCD, but stopped short of giving further details, saying “the matter is currently under investigation.”

According to an investigating official, the owner of the gold runs a hotel in Chhetrapati. Police on Monday raided the hotel—Kathmandu One—believed to be owned by the alleged smugglers. Police sources told the Post that Xia Qing, who runs the hotel in Chhetrapati, his wife Sun Shui and father Zhan Goa are suspected to have been operating a gold smuggling ring for quite some time.

Smuggling of gold from China has increased in recent years, mostly to cater to the Indian market where the demand of the precious yellow metal is high.

Smugglers earlier used to smuggle gold through the Tatopani border point before the Gorkha Earthquake in 2015. After the quake destroyed roads to Tatopani, smugglers of late have turned to Kerung-Rasuwagadi border to smuggle gold into Nepal.

Earlier on August 31, a police team deployed from the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) had seized 15kg gold smuggled from China and arrested seven persons. The gold had entered Nepal from the Kerung border point.

On January 5, the CIB had seized 33kg gold from the Tribhuvan International Airport that had passed undetected through the customs.