Customs Intelligence yesterday recovered more than 60kg from a Biman flight coming in from Dubai at the Shahjalal airport in Dhaka.
Looking at the way the precious metal was hidden inside the aircraft, intelligence officials suspect that national flag career Biman’s staff were involved with the smuggling.
“Customs officials searched the BG-048 flight after it landed at the airport around 8:15am. It came from the United Arab Emirates via the Chittagong airport,” said Moinul Khan, director general of Customs Intelligence.
He said the flight was supposed to land in Dhaka around 10:15am but it arrived two hour before schedule. Moreover, the aircraft was scheduled to stand in the boarding bridge area for passenger offloading, but it was taken to the bay area.
“The gold bars were hidden inside pipes and tissue boxes in the four toilets and in boxes containing oxygen masks. This suggests that there had to be involvement of airlines officials, otherwise the gold could not have been hidden in those places,” the DG said.
Deputy Director of Customs Intelligence Mustafizur Rahman, who conducted the five-hour operation yesterday, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The first gold bars were found in the commode in one of the toilets. Wrapped in a piece of cloth and tied with a rope, they were placed inside the pipe. At first we did not see anything when we lifted the commode cover. Only a bit of the rope was visible. But when we pulled the rope, we found 120 gold bars,” he said.
The second stash of 185 bars was found in a box containing oxygen masks. The bars were stuck to the inside of the box with tape that was of the same colour as the box,” he said.
“The rest of the gold bars and ornaments were hidden in tissue boxes and behind mirrors inside the toilets,” said Mustafiz, who was part of a four member-team.
Of the stash recovered, 481 bars weigh 10-grams each and the other four weigh 1kg each. The total weight of the 114 gold chains is nearly 498 grams.
After the bust, the customs officials brought the gold before media at a briefing in the red channel area of the airport.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Nojibur Rahman told reporters that the recovered gold is worth around Tk30 crores. The gold will be handed over to Bangladesh Bank after the completion of legal procedures.
“It surely took an expert [to hide the gold in those places] and Biman insiders might have been involved. But we will have to wait for the investigation report to know for certain,” the NBR boss said. Custom Intelligence chief Moinul Khan told reporters at the briefing: “We will form a three-member inquiry committee soon. The staff and officials of the airlines will be interrogated because it is totally impossible to do such things without their help.”
In November last year, law enforcers arrested five people including a deputy director of the national flag carrier for their involvement with smuggling.
Detectives found that five pilots, four co-pilots, 25 cabin crew members, 15 flight stewards, seven junior pursers, three flight pursers and five chief pursers were involved with the crime.
Investigations revealed that at least 23 identified rackets have been actively smuggling gold in Bangladesh. Eleven of them directly smuggle gold and the others operate in the guise of money exchange traders.
Of the 11 syndicates directly involved, seven were based at Dhaka airport, three at Chittagong and one at Sylhet.
Intelligence data suggests that over the last year, gold weighing around 1,000kg has been seized from aircrafts in various airports in the country.
