KARACHI: The MCC Appraisement West has lodged two more FIRs against M/s AMI Pakistan Pvt Ltd and other importers in the switch bill of lading case, which brings the number of FIRs against M/s AMI Pakistan to 40.

MCC Appraisement has in total lodged 20 FIRS, MCC Appraisement East lodged 19 FIRs and Customs I&I has lodged one FIR against M/s AMI Pakistan and several other importers in this case.

These fresh FIRs have booked M/s Shehzad Brothers, M/s Moriswala & Company, M/s S.S.J Brothers and M/s U-Trade Logistics Pvt Ltd.

M/s AMI Pakistan and its directors are accused of fraudulent manifestation of import consignments to circumvent several provisions and availing inadmissible benefits.

All of the above accused have been booked for importing banned Indian fabric through mis-declaration of port of origin and port of loading as China instead of actual Dubai to circumvent the provisions of Import Policy. Moreover, electronic goods were imported to claim inadmissible benefits of free trade agreement.

There have been around 17,000 consignments of fabrics imported in the last couple of years, including 2,532 cleared from MCC Appraisement East, 1,791 from MCC Port Qasim, 1,764 from MCC Lahore, 1,097 from MCC Islamabad, 341 from MCC Peshawar, 129 from MCC Faisalabad, 144 from MCC Sialkot and 9,350 fabric consignments were cleared from MCC Appraisement West.

The customs department has already booked M/s AMI Pakistan, several importers and clearing agents for committing fraud and issuing switch bills of lading to clear different goods by mis-declaring the vital information with regard to the shipper’s name, port of loading, country of origin to claim inadmissible free trade agreement benefit and clearing banned products.