DHAKA: Customs officials at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport have seized 48 gold bars, apparently abandoned, from the cargo hold of a plane of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
Customs officials said that they raided the aircraft around 3’o clock in the night after it landed from Dubai. The gold bars weigh 5.5 kg and are valued at 25 million Taka, officials said.
However, no one involved in the smuggling was detained or arrested during the raid. “It was on the basis of a definite tip-off,” officials said. The gold bars were found hanging from black cloth inside the cargo hold of the plane.
More than a month ago, Customs officials had found 936 gold bars, weighing 106 kilograms, abandoned in the toilet of an aircraft of same airline that had returned from Dubai. Mechanical Assistant of Biman Airlines had been arrested in that connection.
Based on the information provided by him, detectives arrested 10 people including the so-called masterminds of a top gold smuggling cartel. The gang’s kingpin was arrested. Seventy gold bars, weighing 8 kg, were found hidden inside his pillow. The gang had been, for several years, smuggling in gold bars twice a week through the Shahjalal International Airport. They had been helped by ‘influential quarters’ for monetary considerations, police said.
Bangladesh is believed to be a major channel for smuggling gold into India, where demand for the yellow metal is high and makes smuggling attractive after recent import curbs by Delhi to cut down foreign exchange outflow.
