KARACHI: MCC Peshawar foiled a bid to smuggle gold worth Rs10 million into Pakistan from Afghanistan and arrested one person at Customs station Torkham.
Collector MCC Peshawar Qurban Ali has issued instructions to the formation to keep strict vigilance on the movement of contrabands.
During the course of scanning of baggage of incoming passengers at Customs baggage checking/scanning Hall, NLC Terminal, Customs Station Torkham, the Customs Staff along-with NLC Staff on duty scanned a shopper of fresh apples of a passenger Muhammad Numan S/o Zareef Khan on his way from Afghanistan.
Customs staff at the station includes Deputy Superintendent Mehmood-ul-Hasan and Inspectors Mohammad Junaid, Ayub-ur-Rehman and Bakht Munir.
Scanning of the shopper revealed suspected Images with reasonable belief of presence of contraband goods inside the shopper. The shopper was opened in presence of the passenger and examined which led to recovery of foreign origin four gold slabs wrapped in plastic material and concealed inside the shopper. The accused could not produce any documentary evidence regarding legal import and lawful possession of the recovered gold.
During preliminary investigation, the accused stated that the owner of the seized gold was his cousin namely Humayun s/o Jehanzeb who had sent the accused to Torkham border to get the gold received from one unknown person from Afghanistan side at the main gate of Torkham Border. The accused is arrested and FIR is lodged. Further investigations are underway.
Sources said that a large number of Pakistanis residing in Saudi Arabia and UAE had converted their savings in to gold, but then the petroleum prices dropped denting the revenues of these countries. Resultanly, a large scale lay-offs were made.
Since, bringing gold in Pakistan is prohibited, these people returning from Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf countries are in a fix as they cannot bring the gold back home. Sources said that most of these expat workers had bought the commodity at much higher rates compared with existing rates.
It seems that these expat workers who have returned home are attempting to bring the gold through Afghanistan, but that too is risky because if detected someone may be deprived of his life savings.