Armed Police Battalion (APBn) personnel arrested a Saudi expatriate Bangladeshi with 2.2kg of smuggled gold in his possession soon after he arrived at the Hajarat Shahjalal International Airport from Saudi Arabia on Friday afternoon.
Identified as Md Delwar Hossain, 30, hailing from Bogra, the man was arrested with the gold around 4:10pm.
“The gold includes 16 bars, around 100 chains and two rings,” said Alamgir Hossain Shimul, senior assistant superintendent of the APBn, adding that the seized gold is worth around Tk10m.
“Acting on information, we searched the youth and found the gold hiding inside his shoes, underwear and moneybag,” the official said.
The APBn official also questioned how the man could have crossed the green channel with the gold as his body was searched by officials and scanned by a machine.
A case was filed with the Airport police station in connection with the find and Delwar was handed over to police.
Smuggling of gold through Dhaka’s airport has reportedly intensified recently and a record quantity of around 450kg of gold has been seized in recent months, while the country’s biggest ever seizure of 124kg of gold was made in July.
Airport sources alleged that several smuggling rings were involved in practice, which is done in association with a section of unscrupulous officials and employees at the airport.