KARACHI: MCC Appraisement West has lodged an FIR against M/s Eastern Rags, M/s Aftab Alam and others for mis-declaring quantity, weight and description of imported goods to evade government revenue to the tune of Rs22.9 million.
According to details of the case, information was passed through Collector Wajid Ali to Assistant Collector AIB Muhammad Rizwan,Principal Appraiser Shafiullah and Appraising Officer Ghani Soomro that M/s Eastern Rags, importer of used clothing, used shoes, leather bags and kitchenware, are involved in gross mis-declaration of description, weight, quantity and value of the imported goods.
The consignment was kept under vigilance and after Customs agent M/s Aftab Alam filed Goods Declaration (GD), the consignment was examined at Al-Hamd Container Terminal and found large quantity of undeclared goods.
Preliminary inquiry has revealed that the importers tried to get clearance of the high value goods of multiple origins through mis-declaration and in violation of the mandatory provisions of law and procedure.
MCC Appraisement West established that Irfan Bhatti of M/s Eastern Rags, clearing agent Sarfaraz Alam of M/s Aftab Alam, Adeel Arshad s/o Muhammad Arshad and others attempted to clear the imported consignment with malafide intentions. An FIR is lodged and investigations are underway.
It may be mentioned here that Collector Wajid Ali has advised Assistant Collector Muhammad Rizwan and Principal Appraiser Shafiullah to conduct scrutiny and audit of unclaimed containers at Al-Hamd Container Terminal (AICT) to ascertain whether the goods in these containers were intact or had been replaced.
Customs authorities have detected replacement of containerized cargo at container terminals, which had become a high profile case.