Published on 12:00 AM, July 01, 2015

3 arrested over liquid cocaine haul in Bangladesh

Customs intelligence officials arrest two people in Dhaka for their alleged link with the cocaine consignment seized at Chittagong port. This Star photo taken on June 8 shows officials of Narcotics Control Department conducting a primary test on the edible oil from barrels at the port.
Staff Correspondent

Customs Intelligence yesterday picked up three more people in connection with the seizure of a barrel of cocaine in Chittagong about three weeks ago.

The three arrestees are Atiqur Rahman, Mostafa Kamal and AK Azad.

Director General of Customs Intelligence Moinul Khan said Indian national Raju contacted with Bakul, a Bangladesh-born UK citizen, to release the consignment of sunflower oil from Chittagong Port. Bakul is a relative of Atiqur and Mostafa.

Raju was scheduled to come to Bangladesh on June 8, Moinul told a press conference at the Customs Intelligence headquarters in the capital.

“They [smugglers] had planned either to re-export the consignment to an Indian port or send it back 

to Uruguay from where it was loaded on a ship,” said Moinul.

Acting on a tip off, a team of Customs Intelligence picked up Atiqur from his office in the capital's Uttara around 10:00am. The arrestee is a commercial manager at a private firm.

The intelligence team later detained Mostafa from Gulshan.

Another arrestee Azad is a manager of Cosco (Bangladesh) Shipping Lines Ltd. He was detained in Chittagong city in the evening.

On June 6, detectives in Chittagong detained Golam Mostafa Sohel, a manager of Khan Jahan Ali Ltd. The barrel of cocaine was seized the following day.

Sohel was placed on five-day remand by a Chittagong court yesterday in a case filed with Bandar Police Station in connection with the seizure of cocaine, said Tanvir Arafat, additional deputy commissioner of Detective Branch of police in Chittagong.

The liquid cocaine was found in a barrel that arrived at Chittagong Port on May 8 along with 106 more barrels of sunflower oil from Bolivia via Uruguay, said police and Customs Intelligence sources.

According to the cargo manifest recorded at the National Board of Revenue (NBR), a Bolivian company -- Import Export Vaiven SRL -- shipped the consignment from Montevideo Port in Uruguay.         

Responding to a query from a journalist, Moinul Khan said they sent a letter to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime seeking help to determine the quantity of seized liquid cocaine.

The letter was sent on behalf of the NBR to the UNODC's regional office in India, he added.

 

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