KARACHI: MCC Appraisement West has lodged an FIR against M/s. RIZ Green Industries, Waheed Anwar S/o. Muhammad Anwar and Raja Nusrat Nawaz S/o. Raja Rab Nawaz and Gulshad Ahmed S/o Abdul Hameed of M/s. Shafaay International for mis-declaration of description, weight, quantity, value and origin.
Under the guidance of Chief Collector Customs Appraisement South Wajid Ali, the team of Collectorate of Customs Appraisement (West), Karachi led by Dr Tahir Qureshi Collector West has made a landmark case by foiling a major attempt to clear 9 containers of banned high value and high tariff miscellaneous goods.
A particular group is said to be involved in this scam. These people have already been nominated in several FIRs as offenders. Leading members of this group include Aslam Aini and his brother in law in UAE, Kashif, Imran, Moed Bhawany, Kashif, Rehan and others.
Sources said these smuggled goods are not kept at warehouses, but at apartments and bungalows in the city. These goods are distributed on Suzuki pickup vehicles.
MCC Appraisement West has detected the largest mis-declaration in the history of Pakistan. Goods comprising Indian jewelry, high value electronics, Tablet PCs, electronic cigarettes, auto parts and other goods worth over Rs450 million have been seized.
According to details of the case, M/s Riz Green Industries vide GD No. 19880 dated 15-8-2022 imported a consignment comprising 10 containers through clearing agent M/s Shafaay International. The goods were declared to be scrap/shredded tyres. The consignment was imported from United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Information had already been passed through Collector Appraisement West Tahir Qureshi to Additional Collector Faisal Bukhari, Assistant Collector Salman Javed, Principal Appraiser Nadeem-ur-Rehman, Appraising Officer Naqeeb Ullah regarding attempts of clearing high value goods through mis-declaration.
The GD was processed under yellow channel, and on the instructions of Additional Collector Saad Rabbani and Deputy Collector Raza Naqvi, Assistant Collector Amin Khan marked the consignment for examination.
The examination of consignment found that only one container had scrap/shredded tyres, while rest of the nine containers held high-value and banned goods.
The leviable duty and taxes on the offending goods comes to over Rs430 million.
It is interesting to note that M/s Riz Green Industries had obtained an Approval Certificate from Sindh Environmental Department to import, handle, scrap/shredded tyres at their facility in Hub.
However, on the directives of Deputy Collector R&D Faizan Badar, Muhammad Riaz Appraising Officer R&D visited the premises of M/s Riz Green Industries, but the facility was not found at the given address. It suggests that Sindh Environmental Department issued the approval certificate without any due process.
Investigations found that M/s Riz Green Industries filed 42 GDs, of which 34 GDs were sent to examination. It is suspected that by some manipulation, only the container having the actually declared goods was selected by the system for examination, while other containers were not examined.
Sources said that such large quantity of goods are not brought without a firm arrangement with the officials. Sources added that PRAL staff may also be involved in this scam.
Collector Tahir Qureshi has formed a three-member committee comprising AOs Khizar Khursheed , Mashallah Kahleem and Mujahid Iqbal to assist R&D team comprising Deputy Collector Faizan Badar, PA Muhammad Yasin, Muhammad Riaz, Taha Sheikh, Abid Sarfaraz in these investigations.
It may be mentioned here that two days earlier from this seizure, M/s Riz Green imported a consignment of 8 containers at SAPT. Since there was prior information with Collector Appraisement East Fayaz Rasool, Deputy Collector Usman Tariq conducted 100 per cent examination of this consignment. But the consignment was as per the declaration.