FE Report

Members of the armed police battalion Monday arrested three persons along with gold bars weighing around 7.0 kilograms at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital Monday, officials said.

Acting on a tip-off, a team of Armed Police Battalion (APBn) raided the immigration parking area of the airport and detained the three at about 10:30am while they were trying to flee the spot with the smuggled gold bars, Atiqur Rahman, APBn senior assistant superintendent of the airport unit told reporters soon after the recovery.

"There were 40 gold bars weighing nearly 7.0 kilograms and the arrestees were handed over to police after filing a case in this connection," he said, adding that the arrested persons have confessed to their involvement in the gold smuggling.

The detainees are Kabir Ahmed, a guard of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), its driver Morshed Alam and an alleged smuggler Belal Ahmed.

Quoting confessional statement of Morshed Alam, another APBn official said one Abdus Sattar brought the gold from Dubai in a Gulf Airlines flight and kept those stuffed in a bag inside the toilet of immigration parking in the morning to avoid tight security measures taken by the force.

He said CAAB security guard Kabir Ahmed was given the responsibility to bring out the precious metals from the airport by dodging eyes of the law enforcers.

"As per deal Kabir was supposed to get Tk 30,000 for doing his part," he said, adding that Morshed also smuggled gold bars to Bangladesh last week with the help of a few CAAB employees.