KARACHI: MCC Port Qasim has lodged an FIR against M/s city Steel UAE Mills, M/s A.F Enterprises, Ismail Kalodi and Imran Ameen for mis-declaring description of goods and violation of Import Policy Order, 2016.
Subsequent to FIR lodged by MCC Preventive against the above mentioned accused for clearing betel nuts through green channel at MCC Port Qasim mis-declaring the nature of goods as iron and steel scrap, MCC Port Qasim started investigations into the matter.
It was that two containers were delivered at Mustafa Godown owned by Imran Ameen. During the search of the godown it was observed that although the betel nuts off-loaded in the godown was not present, however few pieces of betel nuts lying on the floor and container seal was found lying, which confirmed that containers were unloaded at the premises.
Imran Ameen informed that the goods belonged to one Ismail Kalodi and were kept at the godown for a few days, however, further disposal was not known to him. Imran Ameen was taken into custody and investigations are under way.
An official said informers were now providing information to MCC Preventive because the collectorates of appraisement and Customs Intelligence & Investigation had colluded and were intentionally ignoring questionable things.
The R&D teams of the appraisement collectorates are very competent and experienced such as MCC Port Qasim R&D comprises of Additional Collector Yaseen Murtaza, Deputy Collector Ihsan Shah, Principal Appraiser Shahid Rizvi, Appraising Officers Anwer Zeb, Insaram Rabbani are very highly professional officers
MCC Appraisement East R&D comprises of Deputy Collector Mohammad Ali Malik, Principal Appraiser Dost Mohammad, Appraising Officers Ashfaque-ur-Rehman, Saleem Qaimkhani, Azam Shah, Mohammad Bilal, Senior Preventive Officer Malik Hashim and FO Adil Rasheed.
MCC Appraisement West Deputy Collector Falak Sher is good but his team comprises of non-professional personnel such as Principal Appraiser Saeed Soomro. The experienced officials were transferred by Chief Collector Abdul Rasheed Shaikh. Most of the betel nut is cleared through MCC Appraisement West, but this end has been kept loose, intentionally.
Betel nut is a high margin product so if five of a dozen containers are caught and confiscated, this would make no difference for the smugglers.