KARACHI: MCC Appraisement East has lodged an FIR against several accused including Pak Shaheen Container Terminal for delivering auction goods on the basis of fake and forged documents prepared through forgery of signatures.

Additional Collector Afzal Wattoo had informed Collector Nadeem Memon about discrepancies regarding auction goods. Collector Nadeem Memon then advised Additional Collector Rizwan Bashir, Deputy Collector Rana Arsalan and Principal Appraiser Ibrahim Khan to investigate the issue.

Accused Muhammad Zaki s/o Islam-ud-Din, Adeel Ahmed s/o Rasheed Ahmed and Meer Rizwan All with active connivance of owner/directors of M/s Pak Shaheen Container Yard and others took delivery of auction lots on fake and fabricated auction documents.

In has been learnt that accused Meer Rizwan took delivery of auction lots  with the active connivance and abetment of management and concerned staff of Pak Shaheen Container Yard by presenting fake, forged and fabricated documents including forged signatures removed three auction lots without completion of auction proceedings bypassing relevant law

Besides forged and fabricated Delivery Orders, forged bank challans and Certificate were also prepared for these auction lots by the accused.

The illegal delivery was given by Pak Shaheen Container Yard in connivance of aforementioned accused persons on bogus auction documents. The value of illegally removed auction lots was Rs12.13 million.

It may be recalled that in 2012, Customs authorities detected that M/s. Pak Shaheen, Off-dock Container Terminal, Karachi was removing imported auto parts without clearance from the terminal areas with the help of importers, clearing agents and customs officials.

An official said off-dock terminals were involved in criminal and fraudulent activities and when caught the management put the blame on staff. Pak Shaheen has been found involved in several such cases.

Preliminary inquiry revealed that accused person namely Muhammad Zaki approached Pak Shaheen Container Yard with fabricated, forged auction documents for delivery. The management of Pak Shaheen delivered auction lots on bogus documents to the accused person Meer Rizwan Ali.

One accused Muhammad Zaki has been arrested and on his pointing another person namely Usama Tahir was detained. Later on, Muhammad Zaki admitted that he named Usama Tahir dishonesty. Hence, Usama Tahir was allowed to leave with the direction to appear before the Special Judge (Customs) as and when required.

Accused Muhammad Zaki admitted that he planned this crime with active connivance of a person namely Adeel Ahmed, who had promised to dispose of these lots in the market.

After the scam was detected, R&D East formed three teams to recover the illegally removed lots of auction goods. A team comprising Appraising Officers Rashid Ali and Ali Raza raided a warehouse in Gulbai area and recovered a lot of auto parts. Another team comprising Appraising Officers Shahid Hasan and Fahimullah Khan recovered steel goods from a warehouse in Bolton market. Third team comprising Principal Appraiser Ibrahim Khan, AO Rashid Ali and sepoys raided a warehouse at Mauripur Road, but the goods had been removed to Korangi. When the premise in Kornagi was raided it was known that the goods comprising copper items had been moved to a warehouse in Landhi.

Principal Appraiser Ibrahim Khan along with his team raided the warehouse in Landhi and recovered the goods despite that a law & order situation had been created there by the unscrupulous elements.

It is very rare that illegally removed goods were recovered and only within 48 hours due to untiring efforts of MCC Appraisement and R&D team. Ibrahim Khan is a very able officer and had also recovered Acetic Anhydride in past, which is among his long list of achievements.

Collector MCC Appraisement East Nadeem Memon ahs lauded the efforts of Rizwan Bashir and Ibrahim Khan in particular, and termed it a team effort.