DHAKA, Dec 3: Chaos erupted in the arrival hall of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, as 78 exhausted Bangladeshi returnees from Saudi Arabia watched in shock while torn suitcases and half-empty bags tumbled onto Arrival Belt No. 1. Their belongings—what little they hoped to salvage from months of hardship abroad—had vanished. But the real twist? The trail of missing items didn’t begin in Dhaka at all.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB), in a statement, revealed that the mystery behind the “stolen luggage” was rooted thousands of miles away—in the detention centers and holding facilities of Saudi Arabia.

The passengers, all “out-pass” deportees sent back by Saudi immigration authorities, arrived in Dhaka via Ethiopian Airlines after a transit in Addis Ababa. Moments after completing immigration, they rushed to collect their luggage—only to find slashed bags, scattered belongings, and bundles ripped open. Tempers flared. Confrontations with airline staff followed. Allegations of theft echoed across the terminal.

But CAAB’s findings now paint a far more complex, almost cinematic picture of how the belongings disappeared.

According to airline officials, deportees’ possessions are rarely transported the way regular passengers’ baggage is. Instead, Saudi immigration authorities seize, consolidate, and repack all items into a single bulk shipment—roughly 15 kilograms per person. Dozens of passengers’ belongings are mixed together, stripped of ownership, and stuffed into a massive consignment.

By the time the bags leave Saudi soil, they are already untraceable puzzles.

Worse still, airline officials admitted that Saudi immigration police often confiscate personal items during processing (without providing any inventory or documentation to the airlines. Whatever is taken, taken remains. Whatever goes missing, stays missing) long before the aircraft wheels ever touch Dhaka.

“These factors naturally cause confusion and suspicion once the baggage reaches Bangladesh,” CAAB noted.

And while Dhaka airport now operates under full CCTV surveillance, with baggage-handling areas tightly monitored, the regulator said one truth stands out: the majority of theft allegations come from out-pass returnees, whose baggage has already passed through multiple layers of foreign control.

CAAB concluded that the missing items were “almost certainly” taken while the passengers were still in Saudi Arabia—by an individual or agency involved in handling their belongings.

In the end, the dramatic scene at the Dhaka airport was only the final chapter of a story that began far away—behind the closed doors of Saudi detention, where the fate of the passengers’ belongings was sealed long before their flight home even took off.