1lb of gold removed from businessman's stomach by surgeons in Delhi

The man was sent to hospital and said he had swallowed a bottle cap during an argument, but surgeons found12 gold bars in his stomach

Surgeons in Delhi have reportedly removed twelve gold bars from the stomach of a businessman.

The unnamed 63-year-old man was admitted to hospital in the Indian capital with acute intestinal obstruction after he complained he could not defecate and was vomiting, according to BBC News.

He told his doctor that he had swallowed a bottle cap in anger following an argument with his wife, but in theatre, surgeons discovered almost half a kilo (1lb) of gold bars in his stomach.

Doctors who operated on the man on 9 April told the BBC that police and customs authorities had questioned the businessman and confiscated the gold.

Dr CS Ramachandran, a senior surgeon at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said he had never seen a “case like this in my life”.

"This is the first time I have recovered gold from the stomach of a patient. I remember having taken out a bladder stone weighing 1kg from a patient. But finding gold in a patient's stomach was something unbelievable," he told the BBC.

"It was a tedious three-hour-long operation. He is an old patient and we had to be careful. We found 12 gold bars lying in a stack in his stomach."

Gold smuggling cases have risen in India, after the country’s government hiked the import duty on gold three times to curb demand for the precious metal, according to the BBC.