A Bangladesh-born British citizen had been trying to get a liquid cocaine consignment sent to a third country before it was seized at Chittagong port earlier this month, police said.

Bakul Mia, born in Moulvibazar and living in the UK for about 30 years now, was working for a Scotland-based member of an international drug cartel that was trafficking the cocaine possibly to Europe, investigators suspect.

After the consignment arrived from Bolivia on May 8, he first tried to have it delivered to an employee of Chittagong-based company Khan Jahan Ali Ltd, which was named in documents as the consignee.

When his attempt failed due to faulty paperwork, he tried to have the cocaine shipped back to Uruguay, named as the port of origin in the documents, or to India, the investigators suspect.

The liquid cocaine was hidden in a barrel that arrived at Chittagong port on May 8 along with 106 more barrels in a container from Bolivia via Uruguay. The other barrels contained sunflower oil, according to police and Customs Intelligence.

According to the cargo manifest recorded at the National Board of Revenue, a Bolivian company -- Import Export Vaiven SRL -- shipped the consignment from Montevideo Port in Uruguay.

Based on intelligence from a British agency, Chittagong police on June 6 detained Golam Mostafa Sohel, finance manager of a sister concern of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd.

On Sohel's information, they with the help of Customs Intelligence identified the container and sealed it that very night.

On June 8, the container was opened and primary tests were done by Narcotics Control Department. But it found no cocaine substance in the liquid.

Customs Intelligence later had the liquid samples tested at Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and Drug Testing Laboratory in Dhaka. These tests on Saturday confirmed the presence of cocaine in the barrel.

ATTEMPTS TO GET THE CONSIGNMENT RELEASED

No letter of credit (LC) was opened for importing the consignment from Bolivia, said a top police official involved in the investigation.

This was perhaps one of the reasons why consignment could not be released in more than two weeks after its arrival at the port.

And it's then Bakul Mia his two relatives entered the scene, according to investigators.

"Bakul first called me on May 31 and requested me to help release the consignment," Mostafa Kamal, Bakul's cousin living in Dhaka, told The Daily Star yesterday.

"He [Bakul] told me that the consignment belonged to a friend of his and he didn't know about the contents of shipment."

Kamal engaged his nephew Atiqur Rahman, who works for an apparels company in Dhaka, in the job.

However, Atiqur failed to do so as necessary documents were not submitted yet to the Chittagong Customs House by the consignee, Khan Jahan Ali Ltd, Atiqur told this newspaper a day after the seizure.

He then wrote to the shipping agent -- Cosco (Bangladesh) Shipping Lines Ltd -- either to "re-export the consignment to the port of origin or to forward it to any Indian port", according to an email correspondence between Atiqur and a representative of the shipping agent. The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the correspondence.

"Then I contacted my uncle Bakul Mia in England. He told me to get in touch with Sohel of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd," Atiqur added.

Sohel told police that one of his relatives from the UK had sent the consignment to him. Instead of using his own name, he used the name of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd as the consignee, said SM Tanvir Arafat, additional deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch of Chittagong Police.

Police filed a case against Sohel; Nur Mohammad, chairman of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd, and some unnamed people on Saturday night in this connection.

However, Nur Mohammad claimed that his company was not involved in importing the consignment.

"We never had any trade with Bolivia. We do not import edible oil ... We want to know how our name came up," he told a private television channel yesterday.

'WORTH TK 300 CRORE'

Moinul Khan, director general of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate, said about 60kg pure cocaine can be extracted from the barrel.

Price of cocaine varies between Tk 5 crore and Tk 6 crore per kg, according to him.

This means the cocaine consignment is worth at least Tk 300 crore.