In the wake of frequent smuggling of gold and currencies, personnel of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate recovered 1.2kg of smuggled gold from a Bangladeshi expatriate in Malaysia immediately after his arrival at Hajarat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital Saturday night.
Identified as Masum Sheikh, the expatriate smuggled five bars of gold into Bangladesh by hiding them in 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 at 11:30pm.
Ayesha Akhter, assistant commissioner of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) at the airport, said acting on a tip-off about the smuggling of a cache of gold, the personnel had been keeping a close watch 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,” the CIID official said, claiming that the worth of the seized gold was estimated to be Tk60 lakh.
The detainee was handed over to Airport police station where a case was also filed in this connection.
Sources said during the primary interrogation, the detained expatriate denied the ownership of gold, claiming that he had been carrying another person’s gold in exchange for money.
Earlier on Friday night the Customs Department personnel seized Rs88 lakh, equivalent to Tk1.07 crore, by arresting a Pakistani national at the airport.
Besides, the CIID on April 1 seized 62 bars of gold weighing in at 7.5kg at the airport by arresting two Bangladeshi expatriates in Dubai.
According to sources, the incidents of seizure of gold and currencies at the airports and different places in the capital and elsewhere in the country have become frequent. They added restrictions imposed by the Indian government on gold import fuelled the smuggling of gold into Bangladesh through the airports and later it was further smuggled into India.
