Staff Correspondent
Customs intelligence officials seized gold weighing about 60kg from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital on Monday.
The gold was recovered from behind a toilet mirror of a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight that landed at the airport at around 8:30am.
The seized gold is worth of Tk23 crore, Director General of Airport Customs Intelligence Moinul Khan said.
No one is yet arrested in connection with the gold seizure.
Mainul Khan said, "The 485 gold bars were recovered from a flight of Biman, 'BG 048', which landed at the airport from Dubai."
He said, "The gold bars were concealed behind the mirror panel of the toilet of the flight."
Of the seized gold bars, four weighed one kg each, while 181 others 10 gram each.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Najibur Rahman told reporters at his office of the haul.
The gold bars were hidden in the plane's toilet, he said.
A total of 485 bars have been found, of which four weigh about a kg each and the rest about 10 gram. Some jewelries have also been found.
In the past two years, huge gold seizures have been reported from both Dhaka's Shahjalal and Chittagong's Shah Amanat international airports. A section of Biman employees are suspected to be involved. A Biman DGM had been arrested last year for his alleged involvement in the smuggling racket.
The NBR chief said he suspects Biman employees are involved in this incident, too.
"The plane was supposed to land in Dhaka at 10:30am, but it arrived at 8:30am. And instead of stopping at the boarding bridge, it went to the bay. So, it appears that Biman officials might be involved in this case."
Last November, detective branch police arrested five officials including the Deputy Managing Director of Biman Bangladesh Airlines on charges of gold smuggling.