Security officials in two separate drives on Friday detained two persons in Dhaka with a total of 12 kg contraband gold valued at around Tk six crore five lakh as per current market price.
Of them, one consignment of 7.5 kg smuggled gold was seized at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and another consignment of 4.5 kg gold was recovered at Kamalapur Railway Station.
“Our officials rounded up a passenger named Al-Amin who flew in from Malaysia at 6am boarding BG-087 flight. He was trying to smuggle the consignment of gold valued at around Tk three crore 65 lakh,” Moinul Khan, Director General of Customs Intelligence said.
He said, “There were 24 gold bars kept in a school bag. Of them, five bars were weighing one kilogram, one bar was 5oo grams and 18 bars each weighing 100 grams.
“Apart from it, 26 passports, issued in different names, were also found in
his bag. We suspect that he is also involved with human trafficking. The recovered passports prove that,” he further said.
The DG said, “We have also got clue about the involvement of an employee of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh in the gold smuggling. The security officials confirmed the matter after verifying the call list of detained Al-Amin.”
On the other hand, a Dhaka-bound passenger Md Shaheen, 27, was detained from the Kamalapur Railway Station with 40 gold bars equivalent to 4.5 kg contraband gold.
“Acting on a tip-off, the police nabbed Shaheen. The gold bars were wrapped around his waist. The seized gold had an estimated market value of Tk two crore 40 lakh,” Md Abdul Majid, OC of Railway Police said.
He came from Chittagong by inter-city ‘Turna Nishitha’ at about 8am with the gold. We are now interrogating him to know the details,” the OC said.
According to the customs, about 2,500 gold bars worth about Tk 125 crore have been seized from the airport so far in this year. But the quantity of recovered gold in other parts of country is not known yet.
