Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Customs once again seized 1.25kg of gold and Tk3 crore worth anti-cancer drugs while being smuggled.
They recovered the medicine from the cargo village of the airport yesterday afternoon.
The medicines were imported from Turkey without taking any permission from the Directorate General of Drug Administration and also without paying the duties and taxes, said Kamrul Hasan, assistant commissioner of the Customs Department.
“After verification, we found the name, address and the contact number of the importer to be fake,” said the custom official.
The medicines were being smuggled out of the airport in association with some cargo house officials, said the Customs officials.
One gold bar weighing 1.25kg was seized at the green channel of the airport around 11:30pm on Monday.
According to Kazi Wazed Ali, assistant commissioner of the Customs Department said the gold was found in a bag in an abandoned state.
“The owner of the bag has been identified as Rafiqul Islam who was a passenger of an Emirates flight from Dubai,” he said, adding that Rafiqul could not be located yet.
The Customs officials said the estimated price of the gold bar was Tk50 lakh.
In recent times, gold smuggle has become rampant at the airport, in association with a section of unscrupulous officials and employees of different government and non government agencies at the airport.
On the other hand, Customs officials at the Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong seized eight gold bars hidden inside soaps in a luggage yesterday.
Mashiur Rahman Mandal, assistant commissioner of the Customs department, said they found the gold bars, weighing one kg, worth Tk40 lakh, from an expatriate Nurul Afsari, 35, around 5:30pm after he arrived at the airport by a flight of Oman Airlines from Muscat, Oman.
Nurul was handed over to Patenga police station while a case was lodged in this connection. Quoting the arrestee, the Customs official said Nurul brought the bars for his family members.
Existing law allows a person to carry highest 200gm gold from abroad paying necessary duty at the airport.
During the year 2013, the Customs authorities in Chittagong have seized 686 gold bars worth Tk35.30crore through 16 drives.
The gold were seized while being smuggled by expatriates in the airport, mostly coming from Middle East.
