Dhaka, Benapole Customs Depots: Of stolen gold and clueless cops
It seems that the gold which gets stolen from customs warehouses in the country, whether in Dhaka or Benapole, is never found again.
What is even more concerning is the assistant revenue officers, and the customs staffers meant to safeguard these valuable possessions, are usually the ones involved in such heists.
Take the case of the Dhaka Customs House warehouse at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport where 55.5kg gold was stolen in September this year. Four assistant revenue officers (AROs) and four security guards of Dhaka Customs are currently behind the bars for their alleged connection with the crime.
Meanwhile, five AROs and two temporary office staffers of Benapole Customs House warehouse have been suspended for their alleged robbery of 19.31kg of gold on November 7, 2019.
In connection with the gold stolen from the capital's customs warehouse, a case was filed with the Airport Police Station on September 3.
Police said the AROs, mainly Saidul Islam Saheed, and Shariful Islam, and the guards, primarily one Niamat Howladar, brought out small portions of gold from the warehouse over the last eight months and sold it in the local market. They did not touch any other valuables kept in the vault of the warehouse, police said.
The Detective Branch of DMP was investigating the case.
The case has been transferred to the Police Bureau of Investigation.
"We have received the case documents, and now we are analysing it and will start the investigation soon," PBI chief Banaj Kumar Majumder, also an additional inspector general of police, told The Daily Star yesterday.
Meanwhile, On September 12, the Customs House authority suspended four AROs -- Saidul, Shariful, Masud Rana and Akram Sheikh in this connection.
A day later, detectives took eight persons, including the four AROs, on a five-day remand for interrogation.
The four others are security guards Mozammel Haque, Niamat Howlader, Rezaul Karim, and Afzal Hossain.
Getting information from the arrestees, the detectives so far managed to recover 94 tola gold (around 1 kg), but the remaining is still untraced as of filing this report yesterday.
On the other hand, the Benapole heist took place three years ago, when thieves broke into the warehouse, located on the second floor of the old building at Benapole Customs House sometime between 8:00pm and 8:00am, and stole 19.31kg gold.
All the stolen gold is still untraced.
Like in Dhaka, the thieves did not take any other items.
It was also discovered that the CCTV cameras were not working at the time of the theft.
A case was filed with Benapole Port Police Station on November 11, 2019.
The CID investigated the case over the next two years and pressed charges against seven people including five AROs -- Shahabul Sarder, Biswanath Kundu, Md Oliullah, Arshad Ali, and Shahidul Islam -- on April 29, 2021.
Two temporary office staffers of the customs house were also named in the charge sheet.
The investigation was led by the then Jashore district CID Inspector Sirjaul Islam.
The IO listed 20 individuals as witnesses, and the case is presently in the trial phase at the special district sessions judge's court in Jashore.
Efforts to glean information from the AROs, after their arrest, proved unfruitful, as none of them disclosed any details regarding the whereabouts of the missing gold, said Ziaur Rahman, officer-in-charge of CID in Jashore.
The AROs sold the gold in the same way as in Dhaka, he added.
Besides, the five AROs were subsequently suspended following an internal investigation by Benapole Customs.
They are currently out on bail.
Abdul Hakim, commissioner of Benapole Customs House, declined to comment on the case's development. "I have recently assumed my position in Benapole, and I am not aware of the incident," he said.
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