Staff Reporter :
Customs Intelligence officials seized at least 481 gold bars and 144 gold chains weighing 61 kilograms from several toilets and inside a box of a life jacket from the Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in Dhaka on Monday morning.
The estimate price of the smuggled gold is around Tk 31 lakh.
This is the biggest haul of smuggling gold in the history of the Bangladesh.
No one, however, was reportedly arrested in this connection, customs sources said. The Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department’s Director General (DG), Dr Mainul Khan, said that the flight landed at the airport around 08:30am. The customs officials conducted a drive in the flight following information and searched the passengers’ luggage and bodies for carrying illegal goods.
At on stage, they raided several toilets and a box of a life jacket in the flight and found a big amount of gold bars and gold chains, the customs DG said.
“The gold was found hidden behind some mirror panels of several toilets. We had to unscrew the mirrors from the wall to recover the gold,” he said.
The plane had flown into Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport via Chittagong from Dubai in the morning, the customs boss said.
A case has been filed with the Airport Police Station, he said. Some unscrupulous staff and passengers might have link with the gold smuggling incident. Customs Intelligence Department is investigating the incident, the DG added.
