KARACHI: In pursuance of the Federal Board of Revenue’s policy of zero tolerance to sort of smuggling activities and to curb its menace through a robust, effective and coordinated anti-smuggling strategy, the Directorate General Intelligence & Investigation-FBR is spearheading the anti-smuggling drive with full force in the best interest of national economy, said Abdul Waheed Khan Marwat.

Marwat has been nominated as the focal person in this regard by Director General I&I – FBR, Imtiaz Ahmed.

The subject anti-smuggling special campaign, inter alia focused on assigning specific anti-smuggling responsibilities to specific staff, identification of significant smuggling prone areas and choke points, effective utilization of mobile squads, better coordination with other Law Enforcement Agencies and effective monitoring of the whole exercise at the level of senior management, Abdul Waheed Khan Marwat told the Customnews.pk.

To the satisfaction of this Directorate General, the subject anti-smuggling operations have resulted in significant seizures of smuggled commodities including narcotics. Major items seized during the current anti-smuggling drive include Fabrics, LEDs. Tyres, Black Tea. Misc. Electronic items and NDP Vehicles in the current financial year.

An overview of the performance of this Directorate General indicates that for the period 01.07.2015 to 07.06.2016 seizures of smuggled goods touched the mammoth value of Rs 5.12 Billion which is 35 percent more than the corresponding period of last financial year.

Almost 72 percent growth has been observed in the seizures of smuggled vehicles amounting Rs.762 million.

Non duty paid cigarettes remained another area of focus and a total of 30 million sticks of smuggled cigarettes amounting Rs153 million was seized. Significant seizures of narcotics have also been made during the current financial year by the Directorate General I&I-FBR including seizures of 12.5 KG of heroin; 4871 Kgs of charas and 40,550 Kgs of poppy seeds in 24 cases. FIRS have been lodged in these cases and accused arrested and investigations conducted to unearth actual culprits.

Directorate General also contributed towards the revenue realization efforts of FBR through auction and recoveries. Efforts in this area have yielded unprecedented revenue realization of Rs866 million in 11 months.