New Delhi, India (CNN) — When a team of Indian surgeons
opened up the stomach of a patient complaining of abdominal pain, they had no
idea they’d extract a fortune.
The patient, whose name was not released, was hiding 12 gold
bars in his belly. He apparently smuggled them into India to evade import duty,
police and doctors said Tuesday.
Each bar weighed 33 grams, said C.S. Ramachandran, who
conducted the surgery at a hospital in New Delhi on April 9.
The 63-year-old patient, an Indian citizen, visited the
hospital a day before with severe stomach pain and nausea.
“He told us he had accidentally swallowed the cap of a
plastic bottle,” Ramachandran said.
