More than 100 people – mainly truck and covered-van owners, drivers, helpers, garage owners, mechanics, local goons and thieves – are involved in the theft of imported goods which are dispatched from Chittagong Port to different parts of the country.
The 10 depots are Chittagong’s City Gate, Sitakunda, Mirsarai, Feni’s Mohipal, and Comilla’s Chandina, Laksam, and Chowddogram areas on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway, which is the only land route to supply imported goods elsewhere in the country, police said, adding that such depots are also in Dhaka’s Gazipur and Jessore district, through which six syndicates in this illegal business were traced.
Police came to know this information when Bandar police officers nabbed six such thieves including a ring leader by conducting drives in the port city, Sitakunda, Mirsarai, Gazipur and Jessore districts after a drive lasting several days.
The arrestees – Alam Sowdagor, 48, a syndicate leader of the six, truck drivers Yusuf Ali, 35, and Ojiur Rahman, 45, day labourers Yusuf Khan, 38, Hamidul Islam, 48, and Mohammad Billal, 35 – were charged in a case lodged with Bandar Police Station, police said.
Bandar PS Officer-in-Charge AKM Mohiuddin said Energy Pack Engineering Limited had recently imported 4,500 metres of electric cable, worth Tk1,72,15,380, for a power plant, and the consignment was dispatched from Chittagong Port on June 17 for Joydevpur 132/33kB power sub-station in Gazipur.
“When the cables, loaded into five trucks, headed for the power plant, a truck was driven into a depot in Gazipur’s Konabari area and the thieves stole 942 metres of cable worth Tk60 lakh from two plastic drums,” he said, adding that the thieves later filled the drums with false cables.
Meanwhile, company officials who started working in the power plant on June 21 found a fewer number of cables and Energy Pack Engineering Limited lodged a misappropriation case with Bandar Police Station in this regard, he also said.
Following that, Bandar police started an investigation and found that Yusuf Ali and seven to eight others, who were not arrested at the time, had conducted the drive, added the OC. Alam Sowdagor’s syndicate is active in the city’s Pahartoli area and has about 10-15 members. Police recovered Tk7,00,000 from Alam’s residence at Pahartoli yesterday morning, found after the stolen cables were sold.
“A Picchi Masud is the pioneer of the imported goods theft and is behind bars, but his followers run the crime syndicate with each group having at least 15-20 members,” said OC Mohiuddin, adding that they knew the names of some of the thieves but could not disclose them as they were continuing a drive in this regard.