India Smugglers, and Their Bodies, Take a Break From Gold
By GCRU Gold News on Thursday, February 12 2015, 10:10 - Permalink
Premiums have evaporated for black-market bullion valued at about $8 billion last year, industry data show. That’s because the government has begun easing import curbs that in 2013 knocked India from the top spot among gold buyers.
Gold had become the most-smuggled item in India, where people consider it auspicious and a store of value, and rely entirely on foreign supply. Government limits, including a record 10 percent import tax, were intended to shore up a slumping rupee and reverse the country’s widening trade deficit.