Indian citizen held with 12.3kg gold at Dhaka airport

Customs officials have arrested an Indian national along with 22 gold bars, weighing 12.3kg, at Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka early Thursday. 

The arrestee is Arshad Ayaz Ahmed, 46, hailing from Kolkata in West Bengal.

Confirming the news, Airport Customs House deputy commissioner Othello Chowdhury said that the passenger arrived in Dhaka from Thailand on a Thai Airlines flight early on Thursday night.   

Acting on a tip off, the Customs House preventive team followed the man and intercepted him at the green channel of the airport around 1am, he said. 

The team members searched his body and found the gold bars, he added. 

The gold bars weighed 12.3kg and were worth Tk 6.15 crore. 

The alleged passenger was handed over to the local police station, the customs official said, adding that measures are being taken in line with the Customs Act 1969 and Special Power Act 1974.