Bangladesh police seizes 320 gold bars from Qatar Airways flight

Less than two weeks after seizing about 200 gold bars, police in Bangladesh's main airport in capital Dhaka on Tuesday morning again seized 320 gold bars weighing about 37 kilograms from an arriving plane from Doha, an official said. Alamgir Hossain, in charge of Airport Armed Police Battalion, told Xinhua that " We've seized 320 gold bars worth about 15 million taka (about 192, 307.65 U.S. dollars)." He said the gold bars were seized from a Qatar Airways flight that had landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at around 5:00 a.m. local time Tuesday. Hossain said the gold bars were found under two seats of the flight. No one was arrested in connection with the seizure as the culprit involved in the smuggling managed to escape the scene, he added. Hossain said a Sri Lankan cabin crew informed authorities, suspecting the packets to be a bomb. Customs officials in the airport on Oct. 30 seized 24 gold bars weighing about 3 kilograms from an arriving passenger from Saudi Arabia. A day earlier, they seized 146 gold bars weighing about 17 kilograms shortly after the arrival of a flight at the same airport from Hong Kong. Sources said most of the time only the carriers are being caught, but the real smugglers remain behind the scene. They said organized gangs of local smugglers having link with their foreign sidekicks are increasingly using Bangladesh as a route for illegal transportation of gold, foreign currencies, contraband drug and medicines.