3 held smuggling sugar from India

Some syndicates are smuggling 400 to 500 sacks of sugar daily from India to Bangladesh, evading government duties and taxes, and subsequently selling them in the local market as domestic products.

Their activities have increased in border areas following the recent hike in sugar price.

The syndicate is selling the illegally smuggled 50kg sack of sugar for Tk 6,200, undercutting the local market price of Tk 6,800.

Detective Branch (DB) of police made the disclosure today following the arrest of three members of a syndicate from the capital's Kamlapur area on Sunday.

The arrestees are Nimai Banik, 44, manager of Arisha Traders of Cumilla's Chawakbazar area, Meer Hossain, 38, proprietor of Tangail Broders of Feni, and Abdullah Al Masud, 39,a middleman.

Police started the investigation and made the arrest after several industries in the country filed a complaint that a gang had been marketing low-quality Indian sugar in the name of local products, said Harun Or Rashid, additional commissioner (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

He said a gang, known as Momin Brothers, based in Cumilla's Saheb Bazar area, used to smuggle 400 to 500 sacks every day through different borders of the country by evading government duties and taxes. The smuggled goods were stored in the warehouse of Arisha Traders.

After that, on the instructions of Nimai Banik, the smuggled sugar was sold at a low price to different warehouses of Feni, Khatunganj, and Chattogram, said the DB chief.

The price of sugar, both loose and packaged, increased over the past couple of weeks.

Loose sugar is now being sold at Tk 150-160 per kg, which was Tk 135 a couple of weeks ago.