A probe body identified 18 officials of Biman Bangladesh Airlines as suspects in connection with two hauls of smuggled gold seized at the Hajrat Shahjalal International Airport.
The five-member probe committee was formed on September 30 to find out the owners of the smuggled gold and the smuggling networks at the country’s main airport.
“Suspected 18 Biman officials include three captains, three second pilots, three chief parsers, two air hostages, five engineers and two junior officials,” said Moinul Khan, director general of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID), who heads the committee.
Asked, the CIID director general said 11 of the Biman officials were on duty in three flights in which gold was smuggled and seven others travelled to Dubai by those same flights.”
In reply to a question he said: “Information extracted from those 18 officials will help unearth the mystery behind the smugglings.”
The five-member committee comprising five top officials from five government agencies working at the airport was constituted after a four-member committee formed by the Biman authorities failed to make any progress.
Representatives from the Civil Aviation Authorities of Bangladesh (CAAB), Customs Department, Biman Bangladesh Airlies and Airport Security Authorities are the rest other four members of the committee.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune Mominul Islam, general Manager (security) of Bangladesh Biman, who headed the first committee, said they could not conclude their probe as none of them was permitted to visit Dubai to collect information.
Another member of the committee said they were getting prepared to travel to Dubai to talk to the customs officials concerned at Dubai Airport where they would also check the documents of clearing, forwarding and other papers.
He said an application had been submitted to the National Bureau of Revenue (NBR) chairman seeking his approval for Dubai visit.
Moinul Khan, the head of the present committee, said during enquiry at Dubai airport assistances would be taken from the officials of the Regional Intelligence Liason Office (RILO), the regional headquarters of the Hong Kong-based World Customs Organisation (WCO).
The committee chief said: “Many more officials and outsiders are also suspected to have been involved in the smuggling ring.”
“The committee was given one-month time. As the time limit has already crossed, more time would be sought,” he said and added: “We hope we would be able to make our findings public through a press conference.”
The 1065 gold bars weighing 124Kg worth Tk540m were recovered from a Biman flight on July 24 in an abandoned state after it arrived at Dhaka from Dubai and another 18kg was recovered a week later.
Sources said over 350kg of gold had been seized in the last 10 months apart from various precious metals, currencies, electronic accessories and other valuables.
According to airport sources, over 3,600 people, including air crews and personnel of CAAB, customs, immigration, National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Ansar have been arrested in the last three years at airport for their involvement in the smuggling and other illicit acts.
The four-member committee has recently submitted the findings to its managing director mentioning that they neither could detect the gold owners nor others involved.
