Bangladeshi police has arrested a large gang of thieves who steal apparel items by opening the locks of containers and covered vans while the vehicles were at the highways on their way to and from the Chittagong port.
The gang has reportedly stolen goods worth millions of dollars from 5,000 trucks during the last 20 years.
Truck and covered van drivers are also involved with the gang that steals goods from the vehicles. Police arrested 11 members of the gang this week after checking the phone number of a truck driver who is also a member of the group. The leader of the gang, namely Sahed alias Sayeed, is accused in 24 police cases in different parts of the country.
Police said the sooner the goods-laden vehicles reach the highways, the gang of the thieves take them to some nearest makeshift warehouses and loot some ready-made garment and raw materials by opening their doors.
Latter, they were selling these goods to the local market and some garment buying houses.
As a result, the foreign buyers had been getting fewer products in their containers and cartons at the final destination and blamed the exporters.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association had long been requesting police’s help to arrest the thieves, after receiving a number of such allegations from the buyers’ community.
In May this year, an apparel factory namely Jayanti Knitwear Ltd sent 28,320 pieces of garments to Chittagong port from its factory by a covered van for shipment. After they reached abroad, the buyer found that 11,000 pieces of goods were missing. The buyer fined the garment factory US$28,908 as it got less number of goods.
On 15 September, another factory namely Network Clothing Ltd had been sending 17,152 pieces of goods to a German buyer from its factory. When its covered van reached Chittagong port, the authority found 5,000 pieces were missing.
After the two factories filed cases, detectives arrested 11 thieves who were involved in the theft.
Amid this situation, police has asked factory owners to carry goods by their own trucks and covered vans, if possible, or send trucks by escorting, monitoring vehicles by using global positioning system (GPS) trackers, and keep the copy of driving license and national ID cards if sent goods by vehicles of others.
In July this year, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan the 252 kilometre long Dhaka-Chittagong highway will be brought under the coverage of closed-circuit television camera so that the road can be kept under monitoring of police properly and prevent theft of goods and other occurrences.
The Highway Police has been given required funds for the task and the minister expects that the CCTV camera coverage will be completed in the next two months.
Sharar Nayel
Bangladesh Correspondent
