More than 200 imported containers flagged for suspected customs offenses are currently untraceable at Chittagong Port. This disappearance has raised urgent concerns regarding the potential presence of hazardous chemical consignments at the nation’s primary maritime gateway.
The Chittagong Customs House (CCH) confirmed that these units are "locked" within the ASYCUDA World risk management system. While this prevents their legal release, officials cannot conduct mandatory physical inspections because the containers’ locations remain unknown. Over the last nine months, the CCH’s Audit, Intelligence, and Risk Management (AIR) department has sent four formal requests to the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) to locate the missing boxes, with the latest reminder issued in April 2026.
The untraceable inventory includes units arriving over several years: 83 from 2021, 61 from 2022, 40 from 2023, and 66 from 2024.
This lapse in tracking echoes the 2022 BM Container Depot disaster in Sitakunda, where a chemical explosion killed approximately 50 people. That incident revealed that large quantities of dangerous chemicals—including hydrogen peroxide and various acids—had remained abandoned at the port for over a decade. While port authorities have worked to auction or destroy long-abandoned stocks over the past two years, these 200 "missing" high-risk containers represent a renewed and unidentified threat to public safety
