For the second time in a row, customs department officials seized 1.2kg of gold and detained a person at the Hajarat Shahjalal International Airport on Wednesday night.
The arrested is Shariful Islam, from Benapole area in Sharsha upazila of Jessore district.
Ruhul Amin, assistant commissioner of the airport customs department, said they detained Shariful Islam immediately after his arrival at the airport at 9:30pm receiving a tip-off and recovered a gold bar weighing 1.2kg upon searching his body.
“Shariful arrived at Dhaka airport on a flight on Malaysian Airlines from Malaysia,” the official said.
Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, the customs officials recovered 12 bars and 27 necklaces weighing 1.5kg of gold from a DHL parcel, a courier service agent, sent from Singapore to a local electronics shop.
Sources said around 60 criminal rings are involved in smuggling gold, diamond, various precious metals and stones, currencies and other items through the airports of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet.
The smuggling of gold has intensified in recent times centring the airports in Bangladesh since the Indian government imposed some restrictions on the import of gold last year.
There had been a record of the seizures of gold weighing 124kg and 109kg respectively in two separate hauls at the Dhaka airport.