The Paro police on 3rd July 2023 detained a Druk Air employee and his wife in connection to a large amount of US dollars seized from him by Thai customs on 23 June 2023.
It is alleged that in their random checking Thai customs checked the baggage of the man and they found large wads of USD 100 notes stuffed inside the outer cover of K5 Whisky. The alleged amount seized is USD 450,000 (Nu 36.90 million) though this is yet to be confirmed.
The flight he had taken was KB 130 flight to Bangkok on 23 June. He had accompanied his niece till Bangkok to see her off to Australia.
At the time the RBP was not aware of the seizure of the money and the arrest of the Druk Air staff in Bangkok with the money.
He came back on 28 June 2023 and since he was a frequent flier the customs checked him thoroughly but found nothing on him.
However, RBP got alerted about the issue when a message from Bangkok about the seizure and arrest along with the picture of the money that had been sent to an official in Bhutan went viral.
The police detained the man who initially kept denying that it was his money saying it must have belonged to someone else. However, his wife who was also detained confessed that the money belonged to them.
A question here would be on how the money could make it past the scanning machines in Paro Airport.
Here it is suspected that since the man and his wife both working in the catering section of Druk Air they may have avoided the checks by disguising the money as food and beverages.
The man has had an extensive travel history in the past six months indicating suspicious activity when coupled with the above facts, and a question here is if he had ferried money before too.
The other question is who the money actually belonged to, if there were acting as couriers and what was the money meant to buy from Bangkok.