The customs officials at the Dhaka airport seized 119 gold bars weighing around 14kg yesterday.
They arrested seven members of a gang for smuggling the gold, which was worth around Tk7 crore.
The detained are Md Jasim Uddin, Amir Hossain, Rashed Chowdhury, Md Nazim Uddin, Salauddin Ahmed, Lokman Bhuiyan and Anwar Hossain, all from Chittagong.
Hossain Ahmed, commissioner of Customs Department of Hazarat Shahjalal International Airport, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The gold bars were smuggled into the country from Dubai via a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight by some members of a gang of smugglers.
Some gang members got out of the flight at the Sylhet Airport and handed over the smuggled gold to the seven members who had taken the flight to Dhaka, he added.
The Dubai flight had stopped over at Sylhet and later landed in Dhaka around 1pm.
The customs commissioner said the seven persons had boarded the flight as domestic passengers and arrived at Dhaka around 1:30pm, attempting to carry in the smuggled gold by dodging the eyes of intelligence officers.
“Although there are restrictions to searching domestic passengers, we searched them and recovered 119 gold bars from their bodies and luggages,” said Hossain Ahmed.
He said the detained had planned to send the gold bars to India through other members of the gang. The detained were handed over to the airport police and a case had been filed in this connection.
According to the custom officials and intelligence sources, since neighbouring country India has imposed restrictions over gold import, the Bangladeshi airports have now become the main routes for smugglers.
As a result, incidents of smuggling gold and seizures of those are on the rise.
Over 2000kg of gold has been seized in last one year while a large number of people, including the officials and employees of different government and non-government agencies at the airports, have been arrested for their direct involvement in the smuggling. It is alleged that some customs are involved with gold smugling and for that reason the gold smuggling could not be stopped.
