KARACHI: The Customs Court Karachi has accepted the bail plea of six persons arrested in the case of fraudulent release of security instruments, which were deposited to the Customs Collectorate in provisional assessment cases by the importers causing huge loss to the exchequer.
Six persons including one NBP branch manager, clearing agents and private persons have been granted bail against a security of Rs1.0 million each.
Sources said that former Collector Appraisement East, Najeeb Abbasi had tasked R&D to conduct scrutiny and analysis of security instruments on the information that several instruments had been fraudulently released. MCC Appraisement East had lodged an FIR and arrested NBP officials including bank manager.
Initial probe revealed that the nominated accused namely Muhammad Farooq S/o -Muhammad Aslam, being the fake representative of the importer has got released the pay orders on the basis of forged & fabricated Release Orders. It is pertinent to mention here that in a legitimate case, as per procedure, a Template (Release Order) can only be generated by Deputy Collector-Group. The particulars of the fraudulently released Pay Orders, supplied by the informer, were sent to the issuing banks for verification of encashment or otherwise.
The information retrieved from banks revealed that these Pay Orders were deposited and cleared through National Bank of Pakistan, Nadir House Branch, Karachi. Further investigation disclosed that these Pay Orders were deposited illegally in the account maintained by one Imtiaz Ahmed, with active connivance of the staff of National Bank of Pakistan as otherwise these Pay Orders issued for payment into account of “Collector of Customs” could not be deposited in an individual account considering the specific endorsement thereon.
The documents, like Bank Statement and details of account opening forms, of the above mentioned account holder confirmed the illegal transaction/deposit of above referred Pay Orders in the individual account of above accused person.
The above referred Pay Orders, which were prepared / issued for deposit in the account of “Collector of Customs” cannot be deposit in any other account without the active connivance of concerned Staff of the National Bank of Pakistan, who facilitated to deposit and clear the amount in their individual account despite the aforesaid fact that these Pay Orders were to be deposited in the account of Collector of Customs only.