Customs foil bid to smuggle Buddha statues

ISLAMABAD: Customs officials on Tuesday held a passenger with a Gandhara-era artefact from Benazir Bhutto International Airport (BBIA). 

Khan Zafar Ali, a Pakistani-origin German national, was carrying eight statues of Buddha. The passenger was booked for Turkey on a private airline but was intercepted and taken into custody after the statues were found in his luggage.

The artefacts were sent to the Department of Archaeology and Museums, which said one of the statues was an original Gandhara-era artefact, while the rest were replicas.

A customs official said the original statue was worth Rs1 million locally and around Rs1 billion in the international market. “Mixing originals with replicas is a popular trick among smugglers of archaeological artefacts,” he said.