73 Tortoises recovered and 3 held in connection

Rare tortoises seized at airport-Courtesy The Daily Star

A mixture of 73 rare and normal tortoises was recovered in a joint drive operated by Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Customs authority, Airport Armed Police and Civil Aviation security personnel. Three person also had been detained in suspicion to be involved in the smuggling case.

On November 5, a passenger tried to enter the departure terminal through gate number 3 where his baggage was screened through scanner. While scanning, officials of Custom authority and the scanning operator of CAAB found something suspicious on the screen. Then the custom official asked him to open the bag to see what was that inside. At this point, the passenger told him that he had no key of the baggage to him and he would have to go outside to get the key. Then he hurriedly moved to the outside of the gate. Seeing this condition, a female member of Airport Armed Police challanged the passenger but he just ran and availed himself to a standing car by the side of the gate. The car then moved very fast. In the meantime police was informed and the car was stopped at the last end of the departure terminal. Seeing police advancing, the passenger just jumped off the stopping car and quickly made his way for escape. Police held other three passenger of the car. 

Then the tortoises were counted in presence of the Police, an officer from Wildlife Preservation authority and other intelligence authority. 73 tortoises of 4 different species were found in four bags inside the black baggage the escaped passenger left. 

Later, a case was filed in the local police station in this regard.

Update: Later in interrogation by Detective Branch police, arrested Sohag and Mohsin confessed that they supplied the tortoises to the passenger who fled the spot just after stopping the car.

Theft at Export Cargo spotted by Police: Arrested 1

Airport Police the day before yesterday (24/10/12) spotted a significant theft case and also recovered a huge amount of export bound ready made sweaters in cooperation with Metro Detective Branch police. Acting on a tip off, Metropolitan Detective Branch and Airport Armed Police recovered about 450 sweaters and also arrested one Md. Omar Faruk (25) red handed in this connection.

As mentioned earlier, acting on special information beforehand, the detective police from both the organization increased vigilance along the boundary wall of the import and export cargo. At around 4.30am, the thieves were trying to pass the stolen sweaters through a large cut in the barbed wire fencing above the perimeter wall. At that time, police nabbed Omar Faruk while he was in the position to receive the goods. Those sweaters were stolen from about 25 cartons of different companies over time.

When interrogated, Omar Faruk told that he was just receiving the goods, there were other people on the other side of the wall who are basically employees of different organization working in handling of cargo.

Finally, a case has been filed with the local Airport Police station where the detective branch were to investigate into the case.

Two Moroccans arrested for attempt to aboard aircraft illegally

Two Moroccan citizens named Murad Mohammad (25) and Zamal Mohammad (26) were arrested by Airport Armed Police for their alleged attempt to enter into an GulfAir aircraft almost departing at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. After the arrest, Murad and Zamal were taken into custody for interrogation by Police and Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh. In the interrogation, Murad and Zaman disclosed many things about their illegal attempt to board the aircraft.

According to their statement, they illegally boarded onto a ship which came from Morocco about two and half months ago. The ship was owned by a company named Abdul Kader Kassyam. It took almost two months to arrive at Chittagong Sea port from Moroccan sea port. After arriving in Chittagong offshore see port, the captain of the ship handed over them to a Bangladeshi owned trawler and to arrange their travel to Casablanca, he paid 8,000 USD to the boat owner. Accordingly, the boat owner arranged domestic flight ticket for the two youth and also bought two International flight ticket from Dhaka to Casablanca. In the meantime, they stayed in Chittagong, the port city of Bangladesh for 10 days.

The youths arrived Dhaka yesterday afternoon by a flight of Regent Airways and stayed at the airport. At around 9.30 pm, they reached the top floor of the airport and from there, they broke the glass wall of the airport and climbed down to the 1st floor near boarding bridge no. 6 where a flight of Gulf Air was finalizing its procedures for departure. At that very moment, Murad and Zamal reached the fag end of the boarding bridge and tried to break open the glass window of the boarding bridge to enter it. At that point, two Armed Police Battalion members, who were carrying out their security duty at the ground, saw them and cautioned them not to enter the bridge. Denying their alert, both the young men entered the bridge. Seeing this, both the security men reached there and detained them. Later, they were handed over to CAAB authority for interrogation.

Both the Moroccan were finally handed over to Airport police station for legal actions against them.

13.6 Kg Gold seized by Airport Armed Police: 1 Held

Seized Gold bars and other accessories

Huge amount of gold has been seized today when Airport Armed Police, a new unit of Bangladesh Police working at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, drove a special operation at the boarding bridge area. Acting on a tip off, plain clothed Airport Armed Police (AAPBn) members recovered around 13.6 kg gold from a flash tank (cistern) in a toilet near boarding bridge-1 today at around 1145 am. One passenger Md. Monwarul Haque (45) arrived from Dubai by a flight of Fly Dubai to Dhaka. When he straightly entered the toilet near boarding bridge-1 with his hand luggage, suspicion grew in the mind of an AAPBn plain clothed personnel. He then followed Monwarul inside the washroom. When Monwarul passed about 45 minutes inside the toilet, the AAPBn member continued to follow him there. 

As Monwarul came out of there, AAPBn member informed another AAPBn colleague to follow him while he entered the same toiled Monwarul came out from. He found the flash sink cover slightly opened and found a small coffee color bag inside it. He then informed his senior officer who turned up very fast at the scene with members from different intelligence agency at the airport along with the Magistrate. He then recovered the packed in which there were 6 bars. They then came down to have those weighed. In the meantime, Monwarul was arrested while he was about to leave the airport.

Later on, the golden bars were examined and weighed before all the intelligence agency members. It was finally found that there was 13.6 kgs of Gold biscuits (117 biscuits, each weighing 10 Tolas). In addition to the gold, AAPBn members found 5 expensive Sony Ericsson Experia mobile phones along with a around 200 Memory cards and other electronic gadgets.

In the questioning, Monwar told the police and reporters that, one Mr. Debu is the owner of the gold and another Mr. Ferdous in Dubai handed over the gold to him to hand it over to one Mr. Aziz. Monwarul traveled Dubai 5 times for very short time, each of which lasted 1 day mostly. He also traveled Malaysia and Singapore, Thailand for the sake of smuggling gold into Bangladesh. Arrested Monwar hailed from Kaliganj of Gazipur District. A case was being filed in this connection.

7 Rohingyas held with 3 brokers

In three separate incident,  7 rohingyas along with 3 brokers have been held by police today at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. These people trying to fly to different countries including Cambodia and Saudi Arabia bearing fake and forged Bangladeshi Passport were detected and arrested by Airport Armed Police (APBn) at early hours of 11th August, 2012. 

Three Rohingya refugees were stopped by the airport police at the main entrance while they were entering the airport by a micro-bus. Airport police halted the micro-bus and searched the vehicle as usual. In the process, they asked a few question which the passengers could not answer properly as they were unable to speak Bangla. On suspicion, they were taken into interrogation where they admitted that they were trying to go to Cambodia with the fake photo changed passport provided by one broker named Md. Kaiser from Chittagong. For each of the fake passport with visa, the gang was receiving 2-3 lac taka from them. The three Rohingyas were: Md. Bashar, Md. Selim, Azizul Haque all from Cox'sbazar.

In another incident, 4 Rohingyas were detained by Airport Police including 3 minors and a woman at around 4.30am. The woman was held on suspicion when she was at the check in row for collecting boarding pass. 3 minors were accompanying her one of whom was a boy aged 16 wearing 'Ihram', for 'Umrah' in Saudi Arabia. She claimed all three as her children. But when she was asked where she lives, she replied 'Burma' District which increased suspicion level to the police members. Later they were interrogated thoroughly in which she admitted that the boy was not her own child. The passport of them were taken for checking where it was found the all the passport except that one for the lady was forged those were machine readable ones. She later admitted also that two brokers named Mahmud and Mahfuz gave her the passports for Taka 3 lac each. Police also arrested the two brokers from the terminal area.

Later on, two separate cases were filed in local police station,