Apan Jewellers fails to produce valid gold procurement documents: Customs

Apan Jewellers has once again failed to show documents which can confirm that the gold seized from its outlets were procured legally, customs detectives have said.

Intelligence officials interrogated for the second time, the three owners of the jewellers – Dildar Ahmed, Gulzar Ahmed and Azad Ahmed, said Moinul Khan, director general of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate on Tuesday.

Dildar is the father of Safat Ahmed who is arrested on the charge of raping two university girls at a hotel in Banani. Three others co-accused in the case are also arrested.

Khan said that the three owners came up with some photocopied documents showing that they ‘procured’ the gold - 200 gm each from 200 people who brought it in under the baggage rule.

“But they failed to produce any documents or receipts that show they bought the gold from them,” he added.

They were questioned by the customs intelligence from 11am to 1pm on Tuesday.

The customs seized around 485kg (13 maunds) of gold and 427gm diamonds from its five outlets. The Customs raided the outlets on May 14 and 15.

Khan said that “gold brought in under baggage rule are for personal consumptions; it cannot be used for commercial purpose. They somehow collected the documents in an attempt to hide their misdeeds.”

The owners were first interrogated on May 17 when they sought 15 days to produce the valid documents. They failed to meet the deadline and sought more time to gather papers.

They were given the new deadline of May 30 to appear before the customs intelligence, but they failed again to produce the valid documents, Khan said.

“I believe the gold were obtained through smuggling and other unfair means,” he added.

The customs will go ahead with the legal proceedings, he added.

Meanwhile, a total of 2.33kg of gold has been returned to 85 customers who deposited it to Apan for exchange or repair of their ornaments.