Back home with gold

Expatriates in the Middle East are increasingly ‘lured’ into smuggling gold on their way back home, airport officials say.

They play the carrier and the gold is collected by men of smuggling syndicates once the gold lands in Bangladesh, they say.

Customs officials seized 923 gold bars worth over Tk 461 million from two flights – one from Doha and another from Dubai – at Chittagong Shah Amanat International Airport on Tuesday.

Assistant Commissioner (customs) Parvez Al Zaman said they arrested seven expatriates for bringing in the gold bars.

Three others were detained.

Those arrested have been handed over to Patenga Police Station, Zaman said. “This is the biggest of all the recent seizures at this airport.”

The passengers under whose seats gold bars were found have been shown arrested, he said.

The three others detained were picked up while moving around suspiciously, he said.

“Those arrested with the gold bars have confessed during interrogation that they were working only as carriers and nothing else,” Airport Manager Wing Commander Nur-e-Alam told bdnews24.com.

Bangladesh is usually a conduit for smuggling gold into India where gold prices have shot up after restrictions on imports.

In March alone, 45 kgs of gold was recovered from a Trinamul Congress leader in the Indian state of West Bengal after it had been smuggled from Bangladesh.

Later another 42 kgs of gold was seized from another location in Kolkata on basis of information provided by the leader Abdul Rakib Biswas.

The entire consignment had been smuggled in through Bangladesh.

“Even those who carry gold do not know who financed the consignment. They just hand over the gold to those from the smuggling syndicates.”

Patenga Police Station OC Md Shahbuddin said those arrested could not identify who the gold belonged to.

The consignment changed a few hands before it was handed over to passengers.

Later, the smugglers call up and collect the gold bars from them, said OC Shahabuddin.