Fifty-eight gold biscuits and a gold bar — worth more than Rs 4 crore — were seized from six people in Siliguri and Ranaghat between Monday and Tuesday.

An officer of the directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) said on Wednesday the arrested included three women and that all were travelling on buses.

Two DRI teams stopped two buses near Siliguri following a tip-off. One of the buses was coming to the plains from Shillong while the other was from Guwahati, the officer said.

A search yielded 38 gold biscuits, each weighing around 166g, and a 1kg gold bar in the shoes of four people, including a woman, the officer said.

The four have been identified as Thomas Hmingthanmawia, Lalnunsanga, Lawnsanga, and Lalchuansangi. All are Shillong residents. In addition to the smuggled gold, Myanmarese currency, too, was found on one of them, the officer said.

“They initially denied having any knowledge of the gold. But during interrogation they broke down and said the biscuits were concealed in their sneakers,” the officer said.

They apparently told investigating officers that they had been handed over the biscuits and the bar by a Myanmarese national in Aizwal. He had asked them to deliver the gold to a person in Calcutta and had apparently concealed the gold in their shoes.

In another operation, a team of officers stopped a Calcutta-bound bus in Ranaghat on Tuesday morning. Twenty gold biscuits weighing 166g were found in the sneakers of two women.

“They were identified as Lalnihnemi and Thabawri from Shillong. They told us they were carrying the gold to Calcutta and that the biscuits had been handed over to them by a Myanmarese national,” the officer said.

All the gold bars and biscuits have foreign markings and their serial numbers have been tampered with, the officer said.

The arrested men and women have told officers that the gold had been smuggled into the country through the India-Myanmar border at Moreh in Manipur.

“They are part of an international smuggling racket. Several of them seem to be old hands at this and we are trying to track down the other members,” the officer said.

All the six have been remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.