Gold worth nearly Tk 5 crore seized at two airports in one day, bars hidden inside a frying pan
In separate operations at two airports in the country in a single day, the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) has seized gold and gold paste worth nearly Tk 5 crore. The drives at the international airports in Chattogram and Dhaka uncovered gold smuggled in ingenious ways.
At Shah Amanat International Airport in Chattogram, 466 grams of gold bars were recovered hidden inside a frying pan and a vegetable grater. At Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, six oval-shaped objects of gold paste hidden inside the bodies of two passengers were recovered.
According to customs intelligence sources, the total estimated value of the recovered gold and gold-paste objects is about five crore taka. Both operations were carried out on the basis of secret information and under careful surveillance.
In Chattogram, a passenger named Kamrul Islam arrived at Shah Amanat International Airport at 7am on US-Bangla Airlines flight BS350 from Abu Dhabi. Acting on secret information, customs intelligence officials were already in alert positions at the green channel.
Although the passenger declared that he was carrying 100 grams of gold ornaments, under questioning he denied having any additional gold. The officials were not satisfied with that answer, and a detailed search began from there.
Later, his baggage was searched in the presence of other agencies. At that time, four cut pieces of gold bars hidden with special techniques inside a frying pan and a vegetable grater were recovered. Officials were themselves surprised by the trick of hiding gold inside these ordinary kitchen items.
The gold bars weighed 466 grams. Including the declared 100 grams of gold ornaments, a total of 566 grams of gold was detained. Including duties and taxes, the estimated value of this gold is Tk 98 lakh 30 thousand, customs intelligence sources said.
On the evening of the same day, another operation was conducted at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. Two passengers who arrived at 6:15pm on US-Bangla Airlines flight BS338 from the Maldives were caught in that drive.
Six oval-shaped objects of gold paste hidden inside the bodies of the two passengers were recovered. Three such objects were found on each of the two passengers — meaning an attempt had been made to carry the gold in paste form inside the body.
The total initial weight of the six recovered objects is 2 kilograms 734 grams. Their estimated value is about four crore taka. However, the actual amount of gold in these objects has not yet been determined, because the paste is not entirely pure gold.
According to the Customs Intelligence Directorate, as part of the case and legal process, the gold-paste objects have been kept intact to preserve the evidence properly. After suitable testing, the weight of the pure gold and its real value can be confirmed.
The seizure of gold worth nearly five crore taka at two airports on the same day has shown once again that smugglers are constantly adopting new techniques — sometimes inside cooking equipment, sometimes inside the body. Cases and legal processes will now move forward in both incidents, and testing will finally establish how much real gold the paste recovered in Dhaka contains.
