Aircraft crew, officials of various agencies on duty at airport are involved
An international gold smuggling racket, with the help of airline crew, security officials, and various smuggling rings, use the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) as a safe haven for smuggling gold from different countries, especially those in the Middle East.
Airport customs and intelligence officials on Wednesday seized nine gold bars weighing around 1.15 kg, hidden inside laptop chargers. Officials also arrested the passenger who was carrying the gold bars in the laptop chargers. The arrestee was identified as Jakir Hossain of Comilla.
The officials had seized 1,064 gold bars, weighing around 124 kg, from the luggage chamber of a Biman Bangladesh flight, on July 24. “This has been the biggest ever haul at the airport in the 42-year history of Bangladesh,” said Wazed Ali, assistant commissioner of customs.
No one was arrested in connection with the seizure.
On August 30, the officials seized 155 gold bars, weighing around 18 kg. According to customs sources, the gold bars were worth about Tk. 6 crore. Kamal Hosain, a crew member of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines, was arrested with gold bars worth Tk. 10 lakh, on October 10.
The arrest was made by Customs Intelligence & Investigation Directorate (CIID) officials at around 1:30 am, when Hosain was seen roaming around the green channel of the airport.
On October 22, police recovered 280 gold bars, worth around Tk. 13 crore, from a Dubai-based low-cost carrier at HSIA.
“The gold bars were wrapped in black cloth and weighed about 33 kg. We seized them from the waste basket of a toilet of a flydubai aircraft at around 11 in the morning,” said Md Iqbal Hossain, senior assistant superintendent of the Airport Armed Police Battalion (APBn).
Sources said that in the last three years alone, about 3,600 people, including airline crew, civil aviation officials, customs and immigration officials, members of the National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Ansar, have been arrested for complicity in smuggling.
Most of the arrests were made by APBn. RAB and customs and immigration officials also arrested a number of gold smugglers. Of those arrested, there were 89 airline employees, including nine female flight attendants, 396 officials of the Civil Aviation Authorities of Bangladesh, 34 customs and immigration officials, and 210 members of Ansar.
Other individuals, 95 of whom were linked to different banks and 675 with transport agencies, were also arrested.
About 1,500 detainees were fined or sentenced to jail after they were handed over to mobile courts. The others remain in police custody, awaiting legal proceedings.
According to sources, there are several thousands of people involved in more than 200 active smuggling rings at the airport. These individuals, with the help of corrupt officials, smuggle goods.
“No smuggling and trafficking can be done without the help of airport staff,” said an official.
He said that the quantity of smuggled goods seized or recovered was small compared to what went on daily through the fingers of the airport officials responsible for checking incoming and outgoing luggage.
Customs commissioner Zakiya Sultana said, “Most of those arrested in connection with smuggling are carriers who work either on a payment basis, or for a commission. Those behind the scenes remain untouched.”
Zakiya admitted that many gangs were active at the airport, and worked with a section of officials and employees. She, however, declined to elaborate further.
She said that among the items smuggled, gold, currencies and drugs had been linked to countries in the Middle East.
Zahed Parvej Chowdhury, a senior APBn assistant commissioner, said: “In most cases, employees and officials at the airport help get smuggled items out of the airport premises, after the carriers keep them at pre-designated places.”
Zakiya said, “We always try our best to foil any kind of smuggling, but the smugglers always come up with new techniques.”
Nevertheless, Bangladesh Jewellery Samity sources told The Independent, “A cumbersome import procedure, and high taxes, have led the country’s jewellery industry to rely heavily on smuggled gold.”
Speaking to several jewellers in the city, The Independent found that most of the ornaments available in their stores were, in fact, made of smuggled gold.
“About 70–80% jewellery in my shop is made of smuggled gold,” a shopkeeper at Eastern Plaza Shopping Complex told this correspondent, who was, at the time, posing as a buyer, to glean information.
-With The Independent input
