KARACHI: MCC Appraisement West has booked several persons including two appraising officers for importing and clearing betel nut in the garb of miscellaneous hardware through manipulating the system.
Information was passed through collector Dr. Ashad Jawad that M/s Sualeha Textile Industries, M/s M.Z Enterprises were involved in a scam of illegal import of betel nut in collusion with the clearing agents, Customs officials and other facilitators.
There was a pattern in the manner the imports documents are manipulated, the manner and timing of filing of Goods Declaration and the assigning of these GDs to one Appraising Officer, who being in collusion with the importer, finalizes assessment/appraisement hastily and by ignoring the obvious suspicious elements in the documentation and declaration.
An official said Appraising Officer Saeed Soomro was the person who actually detected the scam, as he created examination of one such consignment in the system.
M/s Sulaeha imported a consignment of hardware comprising four containers and sought clearance through the agent M/s Jawed Zubair. Scrutiny found that GD was filed at 07:49 Am, the system forwarded the same to Appraiser Shahid Murad at 08:05 AM through yellow channel. The appraiser opened the GD at 08:22 AM and finalized the same at 08:26 AM. However, it was found that the containers had already gated out by the time said GD was scrutinized.
Perusal of log reports revealed that AO Shahid Murad while processing all the above GDs almost invariably wrote in the remarks that the GD was being referred to Principal Appraiser for further confirmation, but the GDs were never forwarded to the Principal Appraiser.
The customs authorities have so far 33 containers and over a dozen GDs, which were cleared in this manner.
Additional Collector Saeed Watto, Deputy Collector Falak Sher, Principal Appraiser Abdul Qayyum, Appraising Officers Muhammad Ahmed and Muhammad Shumaz after hectic efforts recovered a number of containers imported by M/s Sualeha Textile Industries and M.Z Enterprises, which were found to be stuffed with betel nut.
The authorities have recovered over 200 tons of illegally imported betel nut, which were cleared by a nexus of importer, clearing agent, shipping agent and Customs officials. Betel nut is a restricted item and cannot be imported without certain certifications and NoCs.
Sources said yellow channel was prone to frauds and scam, because under yellow channel everything including examination and assessment are on the discretion of the appraiser. A senior Customs officers has also been pressurizing the assessment staff that consignments passing through yellow channel should not be examined.
The FIR is lodged against Faisal Shakeel of M/s Sualeha Textile Industries, Muhammad Zakir of M/s M.Z Enterprises, M/s Jawed Zubair, M/s Pervez Ejaz Associates, M/s Ansa International, M/s Mirza Corporation, Appraising Officers Shahid Murad and Najeeb Abid.