A cleaning crew found 280 gold bars worth over $1 million inside the toilet of a Flydubai airline, a discount airline from the Middle East, according to USA Today.
"Cleaners stumbled across the bullion when they were cleaning the plane's bathroom" last week after the plane landed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, after flying from Dubai, according to the Daily Mail.
Armed police came onto the aircraft and seized the gold, which has an estimated value of $1.9 million.
"Custom officials said they knew the bars were on board and believe the person carrying them sensed there was a police presence and abandoned the gold in the toilet of the aircraft before fleeing the scene," writes the Daily Mail.
Dhaka has seen attempted gold smuggling before. In the past eight months, authorities have seized approximately 660 pounds of gold and other valuable items.
Last week, officials arrested a 35-year-old man arriving from Thailand. He faces charges for hiding two pounds of gold in his laptop. Last month, thieves took over $1 million worth of gold bars from an Air France plane, and another 44 kilos of gold ingots were seized from a plane traveling to Zurich.
"Earlier this month, authorities at India's Chennai Airport seized 32kg of gold bars...hidden in the toilet of a plane also flying from Dubai," writes Arabian Business.
All the gold that has been found has been registered to passengers who turned out not to exist and weren't registered as being on the flight.
More than 3,600 people have been arrested in the last three years for smuggling, including members of the airline crew, officials and employees of the civil aviation, customs and immigration.
So far, nothing has been announced by authorities to try to curtail the smuggling problem, which extends to France and Switzerland.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
