KARACHI: Customs Intelligence and Investigation Karachi has lodged an FIR against Muhammad Murtaza owner of M/s Murtaza Enterprises, Jama Cloth Karachi for causing a loss of Rs77.385 million to the national exchequer through using vague description of imported goods.
Information was passed through Director Khalil Yousafani to Additional Director Sheeraz Ahmed regarding evasion of revenue by certain importers through wrongly applying Valuation Advice on imported goods.
Deputy Director Rana Aftab formed a team led by Appraising Officer Kaleem Chatha, which intercepted a consignment cleared by M/s Murtaza Enterprises misusing WeBOC User ID by allowing import of fabrics not actually owned by the proprietor but belonging to various unregistered persons and evading duty/taxes on such imports.
During physical examination by the Directorate it surfaced that multipurpose pile knitted flannel / plush fabric had been cleared as “pile blanket fabric” by wrongly applying Valuation Advice issued earlier. Loss of duty/ taxes on instant GD is calculated to be Rs2.387 million.
On the instructions of Additional Director, Sheeraz Ahmed, Appraising Officer, Saleem Chatha conducted scrutiny of past data of M/s Murtaza Enetrprises, which reflected that the importer go cleared 36 such consignments through use of vague descriptions and caused loss to the national exchequer of Rs77.38 million.
Vague descriptions were mentioned on BLs i.e. textile fabric and GDs mentioned knitted pile fabric to conceal actual identity of goods, whether blanked, suiting, furnishing fabric.
The Examining Officers also did not confirm said fabrics to be blanked fabric and even goods were cleared at the lower value of $3.5/kg as blanked fabric despite that GSMs were much less than 225 and in case of many GDs, GSMs were not even declared.
A Notice was also issued to provide opportunity to the proprietor to appear in person and prove his bonafide but the courier company returned the couriered notice with remarks that M/s Murtaza Enterprises was not found at the given address.
M/s Murtaza Enterprises fraudulently acquired sales tax registration for forged documents in 2019. Efforts are underway to arrest the accused. Role of clearing agents, concerned Customs staff, beneficiaries and facilitators in crime will be determined during investigations.