Customs Intelligence summons Apan Jewellers, Raintree owners

The Customs Intelligence has asked the owners of Apan Jewellers and The Raintree Dhaka to appear before it with valid documents on Wednesday.

“The owners along with their valid documents will have to appear before our office around 11:00am on Wednesday (May 17), Moinul Khan, deputy general of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID).

The Apan Jewellers’ owner has been summoned a day after the jewellers’ authorities failed to provide any valid document of all the gold and diamonds stored in its Gulshan, Uttara, Mouchak and Shimanto Square outlets to the CIID officials during yesterday’s raid.

The CIID is looking into the sources of the 286kg gold and 61 grammes of diamonds and investigating whether any payable taxes were dodged, Moinul Khan told media yesterday.

On the other hand, a team of the CIID raided The Raintree Dhaka hotel and recovered 10 bottles of liquor from a room of the hotel yesterday.

The hotel doesn't have liquor selling licence. The hotel has so far collected Tk 8.37 lakh in VAT from customers, but paid only Tk 9,326, the CIID official said.

The CIID will file three cases under narcotics control act, customs act and vat law if the hotel authorities fail to give satisfactory answers about the VAT and liquor.

The university student, who filed a double-rape case accusing Ahmed Shafat, son of one of the owners of Apan Jewellers, and four others, said Shafat bragged about being the top gold smuggler in the country when he raped her and her friend on March 28.

The fourt other accused are Nayem Ashraf, Shadman Sakif, Shafat's driver Billal and bodyguard Abul Kalam Azad.

A joint team of police arrested Shafat and Shadman Sakif raiding a house in Pathantula area of Sylhet city on Thursday night while the three other accused were still on the run.

Source: thedailystar