4 traders held with 12lbs cobra poison
The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has arrested four traders with around 12 pounds of cobra snake poison, worth at least a few crore taka, from Tiarpara village in Bonwarinagar Union under Faridpur upazila yesterday.
Rab suspects that the arrested may have links with international smuggling rings, which smuggle the poison through Bangladesh to India and other neighbouring countries.
On receiving intelligence that the traders were trying to sell the rare cobra snake poison in the village, Rab formed an operation team from members of its Pabna and Kushtia camps.
A few members of the team then met the four traders posing as potential buyers. The traders were operating from a house they had rented from Jahangir Alam Mintu in the village two months ago.
The traders demanded a price of Tk 35 crore for the amount of poison they could deliver. The Rab team bargained for Tk 30 crore. As a price was fixed, the traders- sure of a real deal- displayed the products at which point Rab arrested them.
Rab recovered 12 pounds of snake poison packed in 6 jars. The jars were labelled as products of the "Red Dragon" company in France.
Major Amjad Hossain and Flight Lieutenant Ahmed Faisal led the Rab operation team.
The four arrested are Md Sakhawat Hossain son, 38, son of Khalilur Rahman of Suja village in Ullapara thana under Sirajganj - Md Abdul Aziz, 45, son of late Kangali Pramanik of Pachuriabari village, Md Safiqul Islam, 35, son of Md Akher Uddin of Khagorbaria village and Sirajul Islam, son of Md Ayub Ali of Ramnagar village - all under Faridpur upazila in Pabna.
Rab officials said the arrested four have been dealing in snake poison for a long time. Rab suspects they have links with international smuggling syndicates, as they cannot have procured the poison locally.
Major Amjad Hossain of Rab-12, Kushtia camp, said that the snake poison, which fetches a high price in the market because of its medicinal use, is probably smuggled through to India and other countries from Bangladesh.
Flight Lieutenant Ahmed Faisal said that they expect the traders can give them valuable information regarding the smuggling rings.
He also said that the team is yet to establish the exact commercial value of the amount of poison they confiscated, though it would not be less than a few crore taka.
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