Several frontier routes including eight routes of Rajshahi and three routes of Chapainawabganj have turned to safe haven for gold-bar smuggling from Bangladesh to India.
It is learnt, gold-bars are smuggled to India through more than 50 frontier routes of which 11 routes of Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj are infamous. According to sources, BGB members have recovered gold-bars worth about Tk 50 lakh and arrested dozens of smugglers from various bordering points during the last two-month. Arrested smugglers claimed that gold-bars intrude inside the country through various air-ports of the country and they only carry those out of the border to India.
Despite various gold-smuggling routes of Chuadanga, Darshana, Satkhira, Sherpur, Bhomra, Mongla, Jashore, Dinajpur, Hili, Fulbari, Lalmonirhat and Kurigram, gold-bars are smuggled to India through Sonaikandi, Haripur, Kasiadanga, Alaipur, Bagha, Mukterpur and charghat of Rajshahi district and Kironganj, Bholahat and Shaibganj of Chapainawabganj district.
According to sources except the professional smugglers, many farmers, day-labourers, truck drivers, helpers, cattle-hands, fishermen and even unemployed youngmen and women are engaged temporarily to smuggle gold bars inside various pots like the tiffin box, fruit basket, vegetables, under shoes and even under various sensitive organs of bodies.
These smugglers use both Indian and the Bangladeshi SIMs in their mobile phones and make communication with one another through SMS. After getting delivery of those gold-bars from the air-ports, the smugglers carry those to various frontiers through buses and the trains.
Concerned sources said international smugglers carry gold bars mainly from Malaysia and Singapore and supply those to the markets of Bangladesh and in India. Often some staff of the aeroplane including the crews, air-hostesses, cleaners, trolley-men are also engaged to smuggle the gold bars.
It is learnt, during the last two months ( Sept-Oct), BGB members have recovered gold-bars worth Tk 200 million or more and arrested several gold-smugglers cum carriers from frontier areas of various southern and north-western districts. Despite strict vigilance of the BGB and checking at the air-ports, smuggling of gold-bars is continuing in various ways, it is learnt.