DHAKA: The Bangladeshi Customs seized 280 gold bars with a total weight of 32,7 kilograms at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in this capital, today reported Shahiduzzaman Sarker, Assistant Commissioner of that body.
Speaking to the press, Sarker said the batch was seized from a Malindo Air plane, which landed at midnight from Malaysia. Last week the airport authorities confiscated 23,2 kilograms of gold from a Malaysian Airlines flight and another 2,3 kilograms from a Regent Airways plane.
Bangladeshi authorities systematically confiscate caches of gold that traffickers attempt to bring into the country, presumably bound for India.
Bangladesh may be being used as a gold transit route to India, a country that imposed a high tax on imports of the golden metal to curb its purchase, estimated last year the Finance Minister Abul Maal Muhith Abdu. From 2010 to 2014, the Central Bank received more than 1,7 tons of gold expropriated by the government, he said.