DHAKA: Four members of an international smuggling gang were detained on Thursday with 12kgs of gold from Dhaka’s Tati Bazar and Savar’s Aminbazar areas.
The detainees were the ring leader Dinabandhu Sarker, 39, and his accomplices Tapash Malakar, 32, his wife Monti Malakar, 26, and Dulal Chandra Das, 32.
RAB 1 Commanding Officer (CO) Lt Col Tuhin Mohammad Masud said at a press briefing yesterday that a RAB 1 team detained Tapas, Monti and Dulal at Turag bridge area on Thursday afternoon with 7.991kgs of gold. The gold was being smuggled from Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East.
The group evaded customs by smuggling gold into India and the employing clever strategies to smuggle them into Bangladesh. Tapash disguised himself as an entrepreneur used his own car to smuggle the gold through the border.
RAB later detained Dinabandhu from his house at Panitola building and recovered 4.15kgs of gold. He is the owner of Antor Silver Store in Tatibazar area. Tapash and his wife Monti have been smuggling for last 5 years, the CO added saying: “He has a shop in Tatibazar where he invested Tk 60 lakhs and has been smuggling since 2011.”
He previously worked in a goldsmith shop at Baitul Mokarram area. Three more – Hridoy Das, 55, Neel Krishna Ghosh, and Sumon De, remain at large. Rab is conducting drives to arrest them, the CO added.
