The Home Ministry has expressed concern over the poor state of surveillance at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and asked that necessary steps be taken to detect narcotics at its entry points.
The ministry issued a letter yesterday asking the concerned authorities including the Finance Division, the Civil Aviation Authority and the National Board of Revenue to take necessary steps for better detection of illegal narcotics at the entrance check points and to maintain a strong surveillance on foreign nationals, especially Latin Americans, entering the country.
The move follows a letter sent to the ministry by the Department of Narcotics Control on February 3 that said the scanning devices installed at the Shahjalal International Airport were incapable of detecting cocaine, citing at least three incidents from 2013 to 2015 where the drug was found to have gone through unchecked.
In its letter, the Home Ministry asked that modern scanning devices and dog squads be installed at the airport and asked that these resources be taken from Bangladesh Police if necessary.
According to one report from the International Narcotics Control Board, the UN body on illegal drug control, Bangladesh has become the prime transit route for trafficking heroin to Europe from South East Asia.
Moinul Khan, the director general of customs intelligence, told the Dhaka Tribune necessary steps had already been taken to form a dog squad at the department. It would assist in tracing explosives, arms, drugs and gold smuggling, he said.
The director general said the dog squad would soon start operating at Shahjalal International Airport as well.
Sources at the Civil Aviation Authority said new scanner machines costing around Tk120 crore would be set up at the airport within a short time and these machines would be able to detect drugs like cocaine.
On December 9 last year the DNC detained a Spanish citizen with 3kg cocaine worth almost Tk50 crore at the airport. Earlier in September Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department (CIID) and other law enforcement agencies arrested a Peruvian citizen named Jaime Bardales Gomez with 1.8kg cocaine at the Airport.
Gomez claimed he had been given the cocaine by an unidentified woman in Lima. He said a woman would be collecting the drugs from his hotel in Dhaka.
On June 10, 2013, Huan Pablo Rafael, another Peruvian citizen, was arrested with 2 kg of cocaine from a city hotel. Police found that he had carried the cocaine through immigration and scanning machines undetected.
