Gold smuggling through air, sea and land routes has again become rampant in the country in recent days. Despite little recoveries by the law enforcement agencies, it becomes almost impossible to stop the smuggling of this precious metal. In the latest incident, the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) on Tuesday night recovered a number of gold bars worth around Tk10 crore from a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Dubai. We see no problem in publicity-hunting for such recoveries. The reality is that the amount of total recovered gold around the year is hardly 5% of the total smuggled gold going out using our territory. It’s a multi-billion dollar business with less risk and high profit in the context of Bangladesh. It’s an open secret that big shots are involved.
What gives us very much pain is the role of Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority, and more specifically the Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The Biman is now globally known as the carrier of smuggled bullion. We don’t know whether there is another example in the world where a national flag carrier is so openly and deliberately used for carrying smuggled goods. Sometimes gold is kept hidden in washroom tissue boxes, sometimes under passenger seats or mixture machines, sometimes in cargo holds, and where not! The Airport Armed Police detained three persons with liquefied gold worth Tk8 crore at Shahjalal Airport on July 20 which was kept into a paste in order to hide the same. Other private Bangladeshi airliners operating their flights using Bangladesh’s airports also carry smuggled gold. But not so large in quantities and nor as frequent like Biman.
The Director General of CIID Md Abdur Rouf on Wednesday categorically blamed Biman authorities for non-cooperation. He said the smugglers sometimes hide the yellow metal in sensitive areas of aircraft where it needs to use screwdrivers to crack. But whenever Biman officials are asked to open parts, they show negative attitudes. The CIID DG doubts that Tuesday’s gold consignment was kept hidden in Biman’s body before the passengers embarked. Smuggling through the airport using Biman is not a new allegation. The organisation has been incurring millions of dollars loss each year on a regular basis. A number of latest model aircraft have been procured to give Biman a scope to earn profits.
Foreign airlines are not involved in gold smuggling because they have no local connection. So blaming Biman is not the right answer. Government itself depends on organised corruption.
