Gang of RMG thieves busted
The Detective Branch of the police has arrested five members of a gang that stole an export consignment worth about Tk 60 lakh of a unit of the Envoy Group, one of the biggest garment exporters from Bangladesh.
The theft of 8,053 garment items of Manta Apparels, the concern of Envoy Group, took place on December 13, said DB Chief AKM Hafiz Akter at a press briefing yesterday.
Around 12:30pm, a lorry of Tamanna Traders, the transport agency used by Manta Apparels, loaded with 329 cartons of men's trousers left the factory premises in Ashulia for Chattogram Port, from where the consignment would be shipped to Chile.
When Monirul Islam Khan, assistant general manager of Manta Apparels, called the lorry's driver Solaiman Firoz around 4:40 pm, he was told that the vehicle had broken down at a spot not too far from the factory's premises.
The driver's phone was switched off when Khan called next for a shipping update. He then sent the company's security personnel to the place where Firoz said the lorry had broken down but could not find the vehicle.
A general diary was filed with the Ashulia Police Station that day. On December 17, Khan filed a case with the Uttara West Police Station.
So far, the DB has managed to recover 8,000 pairs of trousers and arrested five. The arrestees are Sabuj, 30; Motahar Hossain, 38; Hanif, 37; Nazrul Islam, 20; and Abul Kashem, 21.
Efforts are on to arrest the other suspects, including the lorry's driver, part of the organised gang, said Shahidur Rahman, additional deputy commissioner of DB's Khilgaon Zonal Team.
Like Manta's, export consignments of other garment manufacturers are increasingly getting intersected en route to the Chattogram Port every day by organised gangs with the assistance of the lorry driver and helper.
In the first seven months of this year, there have been 22 instances of highway theft, according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association's records.
The actual tally of incidence of such theft would be higher as many exporters do not report them to the police for fear of losing buyers' confidence and possibly work orders, said industry insiders.
In 2019 there were nine incidents of theft, up from two in the previous year.
The gangs, comprising of unscrupulous buyers and clearing and forwarding agents, then smuggle the stolen items to Nepal, Bhutan and African countries.
The gangs steal 30-35 percent of the products from cartoons every day, re-seal the cartoons and then deliver them to the port as scheduled, Akter said at the press briefing.
As per the plan, the vehicles take a detour from the Dhaka-Chattogram highway for secret warehouses located nearby.
There, the gangs take off the seals of the padlocks on the cargo door, open the cartons, remove some garments items from the bottom of the boxes. The repackaging is done so neatly that it is difficult to spot any abnormality until the foreign buyers open the cartons.
Later, it takes the foreign buyers three-four months to claim the missing products and thus the garment companies fail to trace how the products went missing on the way.
Detectives have identified at least eight such gangs and have arrested 15 people over their alleged involvement in organised crime.
The recent phenomenon of theft of export-oriented garment consignments has tarnished the image of Bangladesh, Akter said.
Foreign buyers are losing confidence, which is challenging for the sector, he added.
Earlier in July, BGMEA leaders sat with the home minister and top law enforcers seeking remedies to the growing nuisance.
At the meeting, police asked the factory owners to carry goods by their own trucks, if possible, or send trucks by police escort. They also asked them to monitor vehicles by using Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers.
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