FE Report
The customs authorities were yet to sue the suspect held for 'unlawfully' possessing 62kg gold worth Tk 300 million and a large sum of foreign currencies, officials said on Friday evening.
"We will file case against him after completion of the ongoing counting of the seized currencies," a detective official, involved in the recovery drive, told the FE.
Until the filing of this report at about 8:30pm Friday, the counting of the recovered currencies and making a seizure
list were being continued by the customs authorities, officials said.
"It will take two more hours," said one of them.
Earlier on Thursday night, customs intelligence and DB police in a joint drive recovered a big haul of 528 gold bars, weighing 62kg, and local and foreign currencies worth at least Tk 40 million from the house of Mohammad Ali at Purana Paltan in the city.
They also detained Mr Ali, 60, from the spot.
Authorities were considering filing the case under the existing laws, including the Special Powers Act, the Customs Act and the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, officials said.
"He is now under custody of the customs authority and DB police," Mustafizur Rahman, deputy director of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department (CIID), who led the recovery drive, told the FE on Friday evening.
However, DB assistant commissioner Mohammad Monzur Morshed, who also jointly led the drive, said, "Ali is yet to be handed over to our custody."
On a query, he further said that the time of counting the currencies is considered as part of the drive. So, the provision of producing Ali before a court within 24 hours of his detention will start from the end of the count, he added.
During Thursday's drive on the 6th floor of an apartment building named 'Thikana', Ali claimed that he had purchased some of the gold bars in phases. The upazila chairman of Sirajganj Sadar, named Reaz Uddin, had also kept some of the gold bars with him a few days ago, he said.
Mr Ali further claimed having business of sweetmeat and real estate. He is also engaged in foreign-exchange business in partnership, his wife said.
Initially, the DB police were suspecting that Ali had been involved in gold smuggling.
Asked about further investigation about connection of other persons, including Mr Reaz, Mr Mustafizur Rahman refused to disclose such information 'for the sake of proper investigation'.
On information, the joint drive was launched at about 5:30pm Thursday and continued for about five hours.
Searching every corner of the house, they recovered the big haul of gold bars and currencies from different secret places of the flats. Some of the currencies were seized from the flat of his son-on the 11th floor of the same apartment house.
Mr Ali claimed that the currencies were 'legal'.
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