Gold smugglers at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) have gone into hiding following the latest arrest of senior Biman officials as no consignment of illegal gold was found over the last two weeks at the country's prime airport, officials said.
Customs officials at the HSIA used to seize a consignment of the precious metal every 10 days but no such consignment was found since November 19 when plainclothes policemen arrested five people, including three top Biman officials, for their alleged links with smuggling.
Following the arrest of three top officials of flight scheduling unit of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, law enforcement agencies intensified their watch on each of the officials and employees of the national flag carrier that has prompted the syndicate members to go into hiding, according to the security agencies.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner of Detective Branch (DB North) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Shaikh Nazmul Alam, who led the drive to arrest the senior Biman officials, said there are 11 gold smuggling syndicates in Bangladesh which operate from Dubai.
"We've preliminary information that a number of officials and employees of Bangladesh Biman and the HSIA have their close ties with the syndicates. We've intensified our vigilance on them and are cross checking the information before making another move to arrest them," he said.
He said members of those syndicates have already gone into hiding following the arrest of Biman officials.
"I think that is one of the key reasons behind the absence of consignments of gold now at the HSIA," he said adding that they would launch a fresh drive to nab more people linked with the HSIA.
Describing the transit route of such unauthorised item, another official of the team said the Dubai-based smugglers send the gold consignments to Bangladesh through the national carrier after concealing those in various places of the aircraft.
When the passengers land at the HSIA, the aircraft is taken to Biman Hangar Complex for replacing engine and other maintenance works from where employees like assistant aircraft mechanic, cleaning supervisor and hangar engineering mechanic collect the consignments and take those to the smugglers who stay around the airport.
Then, the smugglers hand over the consignments to their paid carriers to reach those to border districts like Jessore and Satkhira by road and waterways before sending those to India, the highest gold consuming country of the world. "Some of the local money changers are also involved in the smuggling in the form of bringing money from some countries, including the United Arab Emirates, from smugglers to pay the corrupt officials and employees," he said adding that the employees get Tk 500 per bhori of gold for their job.
He said the smuggled gold is converted into attractive and high-valued jewelry items and sent to the Middle Eastern countries where the demand of such ready products is very high. The first illegal gold bars were caught in 1987 at Dhaka Airport. But gold smuggling started rising from 2012 when India increased import duty on gold jewellery to 15 per cent from 10 per cent.
According to sources in the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) of Bangladesh, the directorate had seized a record amount of 677 kilograms of gold over the last 16 months since January, 2013 while the volume was 25 kgs in 2012.
An official of the CIID said they have information that many Biman officials are now staying abroad to avoid arrest as they are directly involved in gold smuggling.
He said the smugglers may now choose Shah Amanat International Airport (SAIA) in Chittagong and Osmani International Airport (OIA) in Sylhet to avoid strict security arrangements at the HSIA.
Gold accounts for nearly 90 per cent of all consignments of illegal contraband items coming to Bangladesh through airways as Customs Intelligence data showed that a total of 240 consignments of illegal goods were seized from July to December last year, of which 207 were gold.
During the last six months of 2013, customs had seized different smuggled goods worth Tk 2.63 billion of which Tk 2.51 billion was from gold smuggling, the data showed.
jubairfe1980@gmail.com
