ISLAMABAD: In a sweeping crackdown on a massive customs fraud scheme, the Customs Appellate Tribunal in Islamabad has issued five landmark judgments, upholding penalties and confiscations in a series of high-stakes misdeclaration cases involving cigarette acetates and other goods attempted through the Sost Dry Port in Gilgit. The collective financial scale of the evasion is staggering, with each individual case involving approximately 1.5 billion rupees in fraud, culminating in a total attempted evasion of nearly 8 billion rupees.
In one of the most significant rulings, the tribunal’s Special Division Bench, comprising Member (Technical) Abdul Waheed Marwat and Member (Judicial)/Chairman Hafiz Ansar-ul-Haq, dismissed an appeal from Sino-Pak Enterprises, upholding a penalty for misdeclaration on imported goods valued at over Rs829 million. The case revealed a brazen attempt to understate the value of a consignment, which was declared at a mere Rs1.88 million but found by customs officials to have an actual offending value of Rs60.84 million, causing an estimated revenue loss of Rs828.59 million.
The tribunal was equally resolute in its judgments against Saadat Traders of Gilgit, dismissing four separate appeals from the importer. In one case, the tribunal upheld an adjudication order involving attempted tax evasion of over Rs2.1 billion. The goods declaration listed items such as walnuts and staple fiber, but a physical examination uncovered severe discrepancies, including the complete absence of declared quantities. The declared value of Rs4.1 million was a fraction of the actual value of Rs92.1 million.
Another appeal by Saadat Traders involved a misdeclaration case worth over Rs1.72 billion, where a consignment declared to contain walnuts and baby jackets was found to have only a small fraction of the stated goods. Similarly, in a case concerning a walnut shipment valued at nearly Rs1.79 billion, the importer declared 15,000 kg of walnuts at a unit price of US$0.5, but customs examination revealed only 1,040 kg of goods with a vastly higher actual value. A fifth case revolved around a Rs1.46 billion evasion attempt on another walnut consignment, where the declared quantity and value were found to be grossly misrepresented.
Across all five cases, a consistent pattern emerged where importers filed goods declarations with drastically understated values and incorrect descriptions. The tribunal repeatedly found that the appellants failed to substantiate their declared values or rebut the overwhelming evidence of willful misdeclaration presented by customs authorities. The original adjudication orders had already taken a lenient view by allowing the confiscated goods to be released upon payment of a 20% redemption fine in addition to all applicable duties and taxes, rather than ordering outright, permanent confiscation.
The tribunal firmly rejected pleas from the importers to be allowed to re-export the misdeclared goods, stating that such requests were “misconceived and untenable in law” once the lawful process of confiscation and redemption had been exercised. The judgments cited multiple violations under the Customs Act, the Sales Tax Act, and the Income Tax Ordinance, reinforcing the legal foundation of the crackdown. In its verdicts, the bench consistently found the original orders to be “just, fair, and legally sustainable,” dealing a decisive blow to a sophisticated attempt to defraud the national exchequer and sending a strong message against customs fraud.