Shah Alam Nur :
Smuggling of gold and foreign currency has reached an alarming level as smuggled gold bars and currencies are being recovered almost every day from the country’s three international airports.
Local and international syndicates are allegedly using the country’s airports for the smuggling of foreign currencies and gold, and carrying out underworld financial deals, which have crossed all previous records in recent times, intelligence sources said.
Detectives have also found involvement of officials and staff of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) in both gold and foreign currency smuggling.
“As the syndicates are using Bangladesh as a transit point to smuggle the yellow metal into India, the smuggling via Bangladesh has reached an alarming level,” Moinul Khan, Director General of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) told The New Nation on Monday.
He said a powerful smuggling syndicate is operating in Bangladesh and West Bengal involving politicians, businessmen, and airport and civil aviation officials.
Recently, six members of a currency smuggling gang, including a Pakistani national, were arrested by the elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in the capital.
The RAB officials seized 70 lakh Indian rupees, 21 Pakistani passports, seven Bangladeshi passports, huge number of seals of different high officials and seal making equipment from their possession.
Later based on their information, RAB held three others in possession with 30 lakh Indian rupees, five mobile phone handsets and currencies of several countries.
According to RAB, in recent times the elite force arrested 1,700 people with fake currencies.
According to the CIID data, the seizure of smuggled foreign currencies jumped 30 times in last one year. The currencies were seized from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport (SAIA) in Chittagong and Osmani International Airport (OIA) in Sylhet.
Sources said the Armed Police Battalion (APBN) arrested at least 3,540 people in the last four years from June 2010 to October this year on different charges, including gold and currency smuggling, at the country’s three airports.
An official of Airport Police Station said, “We have intensified our vigilance in airport area to arrest those who are involved in criminal activities.”
Organised criminals are involved with the smuggling, he said, adding there are also underworld transactions.
