South Indian actress fined ₹1.02 billion in gold smuggling case

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has imposed a fine of ₹1.02 billion on Kannada film actress Ranya Rao in connection with a gold smuggling case, sources said on Tuesday.

According to a PTI report, the DRI also imposed penalties of ₹630 million on hotelier Tarun Kondaraju and ₹560 million each on jewellers Sahil Sakaria Jain and Bharat Kumar Jain.

On Tuesday, DRI officials visited Bengaluru Central Jail and served penalty notices running into 2,500 pages to each of the accused.

“It was a herculean exercise to prepare such detailed notices with supporting documents. In total, we served 11,000 pages of documents to the accused,” a DRI source told PTI.

The actress was caught with 14.8kg of gold on March 3 at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. Rao, the step-daughter of DGP-rank officer K. Ramachandra Rao, was sentenced in July this year to one year of imprisonment under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA).

The COFEPOSA-related case came up before the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday and was adjourned to September 11, DRI sources confirmed.

Investigations revealed that Rao made frequent overseas trips and allegedly used police escorts to bypass customs checks. During searches, officials also recovered gold jewellery worth ₹20 million and cash totalling ₹26.7 million from her residence.