11kg gold bars seized from Qatar aircraft

Customs seized 100 gold bars weighing around 11.6 kilogrammes from a Qatar Airways flight at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital yesterday.

Acting on a tip-off, customs officials searched the aircraft that reached Dhaka from Doha around 11:00am and found the gold bars abandoned beneath a passenger seat, said HM Ahsanul Kabir, assistant commissioner of customs.

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No one was arrested in this connection.

Kabir believes that the bars, wrapped in a red piece of cloth, would have taken out, if not seized, afterwards by anyone having security passes.

The estimated price of the gold bars is Tk 6 crore, he said.

According to customs, cleaners, food suppliers and staff of an airway have access to an aircraft after it lands. Customs officials are looking for the people involved in the smuggling of the consignment.

Gold was previously smuggled into the country in most cases from Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore, a customs official said. But in recent times, several consignments came from Oman and Qatar, and were seized at airports, which means smugglers have changed their routes.