Smuggled gold weighing over 7.6kg was seized at the capital’s Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport in two separate incidents yesterday within a span of three hours, while two passengers were arrested for carrying the gold bars worth around Tk4.5 crore.
Personnel of the Customs Department seized six gold bars weighing 6kg and arrested a person at 6am in this regard yesterday while the members of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) said another person was arrested with 14 more gold bars weighing 1.632kg at 9am.
One Shaheenur Alam was arrested with the six gold bars moments after he had arrived at the Dhaka airport on a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Malaysia, said Alamgir Hossain Shimul, an additional superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn).
He said acting on a tip-off, a team of the customs officials arrested Shaheenur while he was leaving the airport by crossing the Green Channel immediately after his arrival at the Dhaka airport.
APBn official Shimul said within three hours after the incident, the CIID personnel, in another haul, seized 14 more gold bars by arresting another youth.
“Identified as Manjurul Huq Sumon, 26, he was arrested with the gold after his arrival at Dhaka on another flight of the national flag carrier from Dubai”, said the APBn official.
The accused have been handed over to Airport police station after filing two separate cases against them, said concerned officials at the airport.
“In most cases, the persons arrested with the smuggled gold are merely the carriers leaving the main culprits untouched,” said Moinul Khan, director general of the CIID.
Sources at the airports said nearly 1800kg of smuggled gold was seized in last one year with the records of the seizures of 124kg, 109kg and 107kg of gold respectively.
But the quantity of the gold being smuggled everyday is said to be much more than the actual seized amount.
Around 2000 people, including the personnel from the Customs Department, Bangladesh Biman, Civil Aviation Authority Bangladesh (CAAB), crews of different airlines and security guards at the airports had been arrested in last five years.
The restrictions in India on gold import intensified gold smuggling in Bangladesh through local airports in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet, the sources added.