400 turtles recovered at Dhaka airport

Airport Armed Police Battalion (APBn) seized over 400 Indian pond turtles from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport this evening.

The smugglers packed those live tortoises in plastic containers and tried to export those to Malaysia as vegetable consignment.

Tipped off, APBn members carried out a raid in the airport's Cargo village area and sorted out the containers. The officials opened one of the 53 plastic containers in which they found nine tortoises, Alamgir Hossain Shimul, senior assistant superintendent of APBn told The Daily Star over phone.

The vegetable carrying cartons in which the turtles were attempted to be smuggled out. Courtesy: APBn

Alamgir said the containers were to be exported to Malaysia by one export-oriented Mamun International on a flight of Bangkok airways that was scheduled to fly on 8:30pm.

Police arrested Faysal Sheul, 25, a security in-charge of the institution. All the cartoons are not opened yet but Alamgir, after interrogating Faysal, said there are over 400 turtles.

Earlier in the day, the team of Dhaka Custom House seized a consignment of illegally imported medicine worth Tk 2.85 crore from Courier area of the airport around 2:00pm, Assistant Commissioner of Customs Shahiduzzaman told The Daily Star.

The medicine, used as anti-cancer drugs, has been imported from Turkey via Dubai, he added.

“We are going to file a case in this regard,” Shahiduzzaman said.