Customs raids 5 Apan Jewellers showrooms, Raintree hotel

Customs detectives have conducted raids on five Apan Jewellers locations and Raintree hotel and have sealed one of the showrooms.

The Apan Jewellers operation is part of an effort to find any ‘illegal wealth’ hidden by the owner and suspicious activity surrounding the purchase of gems and jewellery by the business, said Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) Director General Moinul Khan.

“The raids have been conducted after taking into consideration allegations that the gold and diamonds sold by Apan Jewellers is obtained from questionable sources,” he said.

Apan Jewellers owner Dildar Ahmed is the father of Safat Ahmed, who has been taken into custody over a case concerning the rape of two university students at The Raintree hotel in Banani.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) opened a probe into allegations of the family’s involvement in gold smuggling and ordered the CIID operation.

Simultaneous raids were conducted at two Apan Jewellers showrooms in Gulshan and one each in Mouchak, Uttara and Jigatala’s Shimanto Square from 11 am on Sunday. RAB personnel and Dhaka North and Dhaka South VAT officials were involved in the raid.

The showroom at Gulshan’s Suvastu Tower was sealed at 12:15 pm.

“Their representative will have to contact us if they want to open it,” said CIID Joint Commissioner Shafiur Rahman. “We will inspect the goods they have stocked.”

“We are checking the stock in the show rooms,” said Moinul Khan. “Gold imports are not allowed in the country. We wish to know how they obtained it. Steps will be taken if it was through illegal means.”

CIID had sent a letter concerning asking for Dildar Ahmed accounts at both home and abroad.

Dildar Ahmed could not be reached for comment.

Several bottles of alcohol were recovered during the raid of the Raintree hotel, said Moinul Khan.

“It is necessary to know the hotel’s accounts,” he said. “Various recent events have made the hotel a matter of public discussion. The raid was conducted based on this information. All the rooms will be searched.”

“The raid is ongoing. More information will be available at a later time.”

On May 6 a rape case was filed against Safat, his two friends Shadman Sakif and Nayem Ashraf and two others at the Banani police station. The case alleged that two university students were raped at The Raintree on Mar 26.

 “After the rape Safat told me the family smuggled gold,” one of the victims had told bdnews24.com. “Nobody could touch them for a few rapes or murders because they paid off the police, he said.”