Passenger held hiding 12 gold bars in rectum at Dhaka airport

Customs Intelligence officials at Dhaka’s Shahjalal International Airport have foiled another attempt by a passenger to smuggle 1200 gm of gold concealing in the unlikeliest of all places - the rectum.

Sharif Ahmed, 33, arrived on a Malaysian Airlines flight Tuesday night with 12 bars, each weighing 100gm, wrapped in condoms and hidden in his rectum.

Customs Intelligence Director General Moinul Khan said the man was detained by Custom officials at the Green Channel when he was going out of the airport.

“We had tip-off and his movement was also suspicious,” Moinul said.

But during primary interrogation, he denied that he was carrying any gold.

He was then taken to the Uttara Women's Medical College at 3 in the morning where an X-ray was conducted on the lower part of the body which revealed some suspicious packets in his rectum.

The Customs Intelligence described the incident of recovering the gold bars worth Tk 6 m on its Facebook page.  

He later confessed to carrying gold, but tried to escape by mentioning some names of ‘powerful contacts’ in a bid to threaten the officials with consequences.

The Customs official in return told Sharif that he would be taken to the operation theatre to slit open his abdomen to take out the gold bars.

From hospital he was then taken back to Customs hall and was asked to drink plenty of water. But it did not yield any result.

He was then given a lungi and asked to remove the gold himself.

He complied and gave the condom wrapped packets of gold bars to the customs officials.

He said that he had placed the bars inside rectum mid-flight at the toilet of the aircraft.

In October this year, another passenger was detained with eight bars of gold stored in his back passage.