KARACHI: The prime accused of the pilferage of transshipment (TP) consignments namely Imran Khan has secured protective bail from the Sindh High Court.
However, the Court has directed the accused to fully cooperate with the Investigation Officer (IO) and secure bail from the Customs Court.
Imran Khan is wanted in five FIRs lodged by MCC Peshawar and one lodged by MCC Preventive. Moreover, one Moiz Bhawani, who is also the prime suspect, is still absconding. Bhawani is the clearing agent.
Moiz Bhawani: Intelligence sources said they arrested a person known as Nomi, who is a clearing agent in Peshawar.
His email records showed emails of Moiz Bhawani that the details regarding the consignment and payments made to the Customs.
Customs court rejected the bail plea of Nomi, however High Court granted him bail and them Nomi fled to England.
Drivers of the vehicle on which the container was loaded stated that Imran Khan and Moiz Bhawani used to take the bonded carrier to a warehouse in SITE area, where the goods were replaced.
The warehouse was rented by the Moiz Bhawani.
On the directives of Luftullah virk, Customs had appraoched Dubai Customs and sought verification of 100 containers whether the goods declared at Karachi were the same as declared at Dubai. Dubai Customs confirmed that goods in four containers were different from their record against the declared goods.After that Dubai customs did not respond to any querries.
It is pertinent to mention here that large scale smuggling is being carried out under the garb of transshipment consignments. The unscrupulous elements import different goods and mis-declare the description, classification and origin of goods. Then these goods are transshipped to different dry ports.
But, the importers in connivance with bonded carriers, custom agents etc de-stuff the goods from TP containers and then these containers are filled with goods actually declared. These goods generally attract very low rate of duty. It may be mentioned here that TP consignments are not physically examined at the port of arrival.
This way different foreign origin goods find their way into the country and a huge loss is inflicted on the national exchequer.
Since the TP consignments are not physically examined at the port of arrival, the Customs authorities have to rely on Goods Declaration and the IGM. It may be mentioned here that IGM is provided by the shipping company, which does not know about the contents of the containers and hence they note in IGM whatever the importers tell them. The importers provide just one PCT code for the entire consignment.
The goods are pilfered enroute to the dry ports and the goods declared in the GD were filled in the containers. As all the documentary work is complete therefore they come clean.
A large number of cosmetics, toiletries, garments, toys, electrical appliances etc are imported in Pakistan without paying legitimate duty. Local markets are flooded with these smuggled goods.