In the wake of intensified smuggling of gold and currencies, personnel of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) arrested a Malaysia expatriate with 1.2 kgs of smuggled gold at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Saturday night.
Identified as Masum Sheikh, the expatriate had smuggled five bars of gold into Bangladesh by hiding them inside his sandals.
Hailing from Munsiganj district, Masum arrived at Dhaka on a flight of the Malinga Airlines from Malaysia around 11pm and was arrested with the gold around 11:30pm.
Ayesha Akhter, assistant commissioner of the CIID at the airport, said acting on a tip-off about the smuggling of a cache of gold, the CIID personnel had been keeping eyes on the passengers since Saturday evening.
“Masum was challenged and searched for his suspicious movement and at one stage, the gold was detected by scanning his sandals,” said the CIID official and claimed the worth of the seized gold was estimated to be at Tk60 lakh.
The detained person was handed over to Airport police station where a case was also filed in this connection.
The officials of Customs, CIID, Armed Police Battalion, police and RAB seized over 775 kgs of gold in the last 15 months, apart from a huge quantity of currencies, precious metals, stones and other valuables.
