Some 55kg gold disappears from customs safekeeping

A cache of minimum 55 kilograms of gold has gone missing from Dhaka Customs House (DCH) airport-transit vault in break-ins discovered during latest inventory stocktaking, officials said Sunday.
This haul of 55 kilograms of gold--brought by air passengers and held in the DCH warehouse in waiting for customs duty payment-is valued at about Tk 360 million.
Customs officials said the amount of gold, comprising both bars and ornaments, was kept in the customs vaults for the time being due to nonpayment of duty-taxes, which are levied restrictively high.
Customs authorities suspect involvement of insiders in the heist as lock of the vault was broken from inside while it remained intact outside.
However, they are unsure yet about the volume of actual preserved gold in the vault as the process of measuring the gold has yet to be completed.
The DCH, authorised to supervise and collect duty-taxes at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, came across the incident Saturday while conducting an inventory to check the stocks of gold.
The Dhaka customs has formed an 'inventory committee' to investigate and file criminal case with court over the golden-gate heist.
Nurul Huda Azad, Commissioner of DCH, has said they are investigating the theft with the support of other law-enforcement personnel.
"The gold might have gone missing since 2020. Since 2020 till 2023, transfer of gold from transit to valuables godowns or to Bangladesh Bank has not been reported regularly," he says.
Customs preserves the gold in transit warehouse for a short time to give in-bound passengers time to clear the payable duties. In case of failure, they sift the precious metal into the 'Valuables' godown, and after adjudication it is deposited into the vaults of Bangladesh Bank (BB).
"The DCH found the incident of theft in a thorough inventory of godown," the commissioner says.
He says insiders might be involved in the theft as officials concerned had earlier raised no objection on the inventory search while handing over the charges.
He stresses automating the warehouse-management system of customs as it has to manage storing valuables amid insufficient space and human resources.
Every day, some 400 to 500 passengers come with dutiable gold which the customs has to manage to release following the customs act.
"I have found some 250 passengers carrying dutiable gold on one flight," he says about what passes for 'luggage gold trade' owing to import limits.
On August 10, the DCH authorities made the inventory where all stocks of gold remained in place.
"No discrepancies were found in the inventory on August 10 while the customs found the missing of gold on Saturday," the official said.
Gold missing from safekeeping is not new. Earlier, 19 kilograms of gold went missing from Benapole Custom House on the Bangladesh-India frontier. Also was reported the missing of some 963kg reserve gold from the vault of the central bank.
Meanwhile, the duty on bringing in gold bars (per 11.664 grams) has been increased from Tk 2,000 to Tk 4,000 in the in the current budget.
Earlier, an incoming passenger could import gold bars or gold pieces weighing 234 grams from abroad, subject to payment of all duties and taxes.
In a bid to increase the flow of valuable foreign currency into the country-in the wake of depletion of its foreign-exchange reserves--the government curtailed the facility and cut down the amount of gold to 117 grams.
By amending the existing baggage rules, the customs act has incorporated the provision of confiscation of any amount of gold in excess of the declaration or brought concealed by the passenger.
Experts say the forbidding leads to incidents of gold smuggling to dodge duty walls.

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