Jewellery traders worried over Customs Intelligence raids

Jewelers and other people in the sector are worried as Customs Intelligence have recently raided several gold shops and seized huge amount of gold and diamond ornaments.

Many businessmen import gold and gold-made ornaments from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, India and other countries through illegal means as they face different complexities and have to pay high duty to import gold through proper channel, according to the traders.

If customs intelligence continue their raids on gold shops and seize gold and ornaments, the owner of shops and traders will be forced to close down their business, which will cause unemployment to rise among the people in this sector, said Industry insiders.

Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) on May 14 raided five stores of Apan Jewellers and seized 300kg gold and diamonds, worth over Tk 85 crore. They also sealed off a store of the brand at Shubastu Tower in Dahaka’s Shajadpur.

CIID conducted the raids after a rape case was filed against Ahmed Shafat, son of one of the owners of Apan Jewellers, and four others.

Dileep Kumar Agarwal, general secretary of Bangladesh Jewellers Samity and managing director of Diamond World Limited, told Jago News, “Customs intelligence may conduct raid but recent incidents are worrying for the sector.”

“Emergency meeting has been called in this regard and the organization will decide what we can do in future”, he added.

Enamul Haq, vice president of the organization, said, “Customs Intelligence will raid if anyone runs business illegally. But suddenly sealing off a store is not right thing as many people including officials, artisans and customers linked with the store face troubles.”

Mentioning that there is no specific gold import policy in Bangladesh, he said, “We have already proposed some matters including formulating a policy for importing gold through legal channel.”

CIID joint director Md Shafiur Rahman said, “We raided stores of Apan Jewellers as there is a allegation of smuggling against that and we have no records how they imported gold.”

(The article originally published in Bangla edition of Jagonews24.com is written in English by Zahidul Islam)