The airport authorities seized 38,900 pieces of Yaba tablets at the export cargo village of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Thursday night during a smuggling attempt to Saudi Arabia on a flight, the official disclosed on Friday morning.

Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan, the director at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, said that the aviation security team members found those Yaba tablets during a scanning of garment items at the export unit of the cargo at about 10:00pm on Thursday.

He said that neither customs nor department of narcotics seized those.

But, Dhaka Customs house deputy commissioner (prevention) Muhammad Marufur Rahman said that based on intelligence information they had conducted a joint operation and scanned 349 cartons of ready-made garments, and found presence of Yaba in three of those.

Those cartons were booked by M/S Siam and Somi Enterprise at Khilgaon of Dhaka for shipping to Apariz International Est at Al Wazir Trading Centre in Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

Following the seizure of consignment, the department of narcotics control confirmed the presence of Yaba.