CAAB staff held with 6.6 kg gold bars at Shahjalal airport

Three people including a staff of Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) were held with 57 gold bars weighing 6.6 (kg) kilograms at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport here on Sunday morning.

The arrestees are CAAB staff and Cleaning Shift In-charge Md Jamal Uddin Patwari, passengers Mohammad Ekramul Haque and Jahidul Haque Salman.

“The two passengers disembarked here from flight AK-582 of Emirates Airlines at around 9am. They went directly to the airport mosque situated at the second floor. There, they tried to hand over the gold bars to CAAB staff Patwari. Acting on a tip off, we were keeping eyes on them and caught them red handed inside the mosque,” Deputy Commissioner Othello Chowdhury of Dhaka Customs House told BSS.

The customs official said they opened the bags and found the gold bars wrapped in scotch tape and hidden inside cigarette packets. The estimated cost of the seized gold bars is Taka 3.32 crore.

The arrestees in primary interrogation have confessed their involvement in the smuggling. Filing of a case is underway in this regard.