Customs authorities at airports in Bangladesh have confiscated more than 1.1 tons of gold, often in bars of varying sizes, over the past three years from persons apparently hoping to smuggle the precious metal to a final destination in India, where import tariffs on gold are extremely high.

In February 2016, the Indian government increased its import tariffs on gold and silver in an attempt to curb the imports and thereby stop the use of precious metals as a way to hide billions of dollars of what government officials refer to as undeclared “black money.”

The new base price for the duty was set at $388 per 10 grams of gold and $487 per kilogram of silver.

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In the latest customs seizure, authorities at Hazrat Shajalal International Airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on June 24  reportedly seized 5.49 kilos of gold in 10 bars that a Malaysian man was transporting in his shoes. In several of the other seizures disclosed by authorities over the past three years, the confiscated gold was secreted in the smugglers’ body cavities.

Customs officials detained the Malaysian man as he went through security after disembarking his flight from Malaysia in the early morning hours of June 24, according to Mohammad Shahidul Islam, director general of Bangladesh's Customs Intelligence & Investigation Directorate, reports United News of Bangladesh.

The 10 .9999 fine gold bars were of various sizes, and included four bars each weighing 1 kilo.

The estimated value of the seized gold bars is nearly $224,000 in U.S. funds.

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