61kg gold, 4.5cr forex recovery

Charge sheet against 15 this month

The Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to submit charge-sheet this month in the sensational 61 kilogram smuggled gold and local and foreign currencies worth 4.5 crore recovery case, accusing 15 persons, including several employees of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the Civil Aviation Authority and a ruling party-backed upazila chairman.
Shaikh Nazmul Alam, deputy commissioner of the DB (North), confirmed this to this correspondent yesterday.
The director general of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department (CIID), Moinul Khan, told The Independent that during the joint raid, conducted by the CIID and DB personnel, 528 gold bars, weighing around 61 kg, Tk. 4.5 crore, and Saudi ryals worth Tk. 14 lakh were seized from a house at Purana Paltan in the city on December 25, 2014.
The raid involved a lot of risk as the smugglers were underworld godfathers. The additional deputy commissioner of police, Mahfuzul Haque, who was once the supervising officer of the case, said they have identified the masterminds of the gold smuggling."During investigation, we had to face problems as carriers of the smuggled gold used their short names to dodge law enforcers. After grilling the arrested smugglers, we came to know the names of the syndicate members, especially the godfather, but we could not get details about many field-level carriers of smuggled gold," said Mahfuzul, who is now in the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational  Crimes Unit (CTTC) of the DMP.
Another additional deputy commissioner of Police, Md Shajahan Shaju, who is now the supervising officer of the much talked-about smuggled gold and currency recovery case, said: "We have found evidence against 15 persons. Among them, there are several officials of the state-owned Biman Bangladesh Airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority. There are several high-profile gold smugglers among them, some are influential godfathers and some are powerful politicians."
 A senior officer of the Bangladesh Police told The Independent, on condition of anonymity, that Sheikh Md Ali, his wife  Gulshanara, Mujibur Rahman and Sirajganj Sadar upazila Awami League-backed chairman, Riaz Uddin will be named in the charge-sheet as godfathers.
But the name of  Shamim Chairman, another smuggling godfather, would be left out as he has died.  Law enforcement officials said a ruling party parliamentarian, who was also an eminent cardiothoracic surgeon in Ireland and was involved with a pharmaceutical company of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Medical Research Council, were lobbying to save the godfathers.
 Officials suspect that getting unethical financial benefits from the gold smuggling syndicate, the new parliamentarian put pressure on the top brass of the police and the CIID to skip the names of the masterminds behind the smuggling.
When the influential parliamentarian failed to influence the investigators, he threatened officials claiming to be the son-in-law of a senior minister.
DC Nazmul said: "We arrested the kingpins behind the gold smuggling and destroyed the syndicates who were smuggling large amounts of gold through the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport (HSIA). Now, some individual gold smugglers are smuggling only small amounts of gold through the same airport only due to our joint drives against the smugglers."
Expressing satisfaction for being able to prepare charge-sheet against the gold smuggling godfathers, CIID director general Moinul Khan said: "We
have forfeited the huge amount of gold and money in favour of the state, which was a big financial punishment for the smugglers.

 

 

61kg gold, 4.5cr forex recovery

Charge sheet against 15 this month

The Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to submit charge-sheet this month in the sensational 61 kilogram smuggled gold and local and foreign currencies worth 4.5 crore recovery case, accusing 15 persons, including several employees of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the Civil Aviation Authority and a ruling party-backed upazila chairman. Shaikh Nazmul Alam, deputy commissioner of the DB (North), confirmed this to this correspondent yesterday. The director general of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department (CIID), Moinul Khan, told The Independent that during the joint raid, conducted by the CIID and DB personnel, 528 gold bars, weighing around 61 kg, Tk. 4.5 crore, and Saudi ryals worth Tk. 14 lakh were seized from a house at Purana Paltan in the city on December 25, 2014. The raid involved a lot of risk as the smugglers were underworld godfathers. The additional deputy commissioner of police, Mahfuzul Haque, who was once the supervising officer of the case, said they have identified the masterminds of the gold smuggling.During investigation, we had to face problems as carriers of the smuggled gold used their short names to dodge law enforcers. After grilling the arrested smugglers, we came to know the names of the syndicate members, especially the godfather, but we could not get details about many field-level carriers of smuggled gold, said Mahfuzul, who is now in the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes Unit (CTTC) of the DMP. Another additional deputy commissioner of Police, Md Shajahan Shaju, who is now the supervising officer of the much talked-about smuggled gold and currency recovery case, said: We have found evidence against 15 persons. Among them, there are several officials of the state-owned Biman Bangladesh Airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority. There are several high-profile gold smugglers among them, some are influential godfathers and some are powerful politicians. A senior officer of the Bangladesh Police told The Independent, on condition of anonymity, that Sheikh Md Ali, his wife Gulshanara, Mujibur Rahman and Sirajganj Sadar upazila Awami League-backed chairman, Riaz Uddin will be named in the charge-sheet as godfathers. But the name of Shamim Chairman, another smuggling godfather, would be left out as he has died. Law enforcement officials said a ruling party parliamentarian, who was also an eminent cardiothoracic surgeon in Ireland and was involved with a pharmaceutical company of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Medical Research Council, were lobbying to save the godfathers. Officials suspect that getting unethical financial benefits from the gold smuggling syndicate, the new parliamentarian put pressure on the top brass of the police and the CIID to skip the names of the masterminds behind the smuggling. When the influential parliamentarian failed to influence the investigators, he threatened officials claiming to be the son-in-law of a senior minister. DC Nazmul said: We arrested the kingpins behind the gold smuggling and destroyed the syndicates who were smuggling large amounts of gold through the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport (HSIA). Now, some individual gold smugglers are smuggling only small amounts of gold through the same airport only due to our joint drives against the smugglers. Expressing satisfaction for being able to prepare charge-sheet against the gold smuggling godfathers, CIID director general Moinul Khan said: We have forfeited the huge amount of gold and money in favour of the state, which was a big financial punishment for the smugglers.