It was just another routine day for the staff at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) until Mohammed Shaheed Mia arrived at 8:41am on Friday.
The officials followed their usual protocol, inquiring about any gold Shaheed might be carrying.
They were also puzzled by the layers of clothing Shaheed was wearing despite the scorching heat in Dhaka.
During the search, officials found 30 grams of gold, significantly less than the 100 grams Shaheed claimed to be carrying.
Concerned about the inconsistency, officials repeatedly questioned Shaheed about the whereabouts of the rest of the gold. However, Shaheed insisted that he was not carrying any additional gold.
Following this, the officials asked him to remove the additional clothing he was wearing.
As Shaheed began to open his clothes, the officials noticed some golden dust floating in the air.
It became evident that Shaheed had crushed the gold and adhered it to his clothing.
He was found wearing at least 16 pieces of clothing, including a pair of long pants, nine pairs of shorts, and six vests.
The officials later decided to burn the fabrics to retrieve the gold from them at Canopy-1 of the airport -- and around 4.4kg of gold was found. The amount is worth over Tk4 crore.
Pradip Kumar Sarker, assistant director at the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) said a case has been filed with the Airport police station in this regard.
