Members of the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) and National Security Intelligence (NSI) arrested two people including a driver of private airlines ‘NOVOAIR’ with 40 gold bars worth Tk 5 crore at Dhaka airport on Saturday afternoon.

The arrestees were identified as driver Md Helal, 51, and his cohort Kamal Hossain, 29.

Mohammad Ziaul Haque, additional superintendent at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA)

APBn, disclosed this information to media in the afternoon.

As a move to check gold smuggling, the intelligence of the APBn and NSI had been keeping an eye on driver Helal for a long time due to his alleged involvement with the smuggling, he said.

Being tipped-off, the members of the APBn challenged the driver and his cohort on board a CNG-run autorickshaw on their way to a destination in front of the Bangabandhu mural of the HSIA, the APBn officer said.

Later, the duo was brought to the APBn office for interrogation and subsequently  the gold bars wrapped with tape weighing around 4.640 kilograms were recovered  from a search of their bodies, he said.

A legal process was underway to file a case in this connection, the ABPn officer added.