LAHORE: The Special Federal Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling has approved the extension of two days in physical remand of a suspect who was arrested by the customs authorities from Lahore on charges of smuggling powder milk by showing it as plastic raw material.
Sources told Customs Today that Zahid Rasheed was booked by the customs intelligence team while he was trying to smuggle a huge quantity of powder milk of different brands. The Customs intelligence, on secret information, intercepted a truck in suburbs of Lahore city and found it loaded with international branded powder milk. After that the customs intelligence raided a warehouse and recovered 9,349 bags of powder milk of different brands. Weight of the recovered powder was 232,000 kilogram.
Source told Customs Today that worth of the recovered powder milk is Rs 70 millions. Accused Zahid Rasheed has made a huge loss to the national kitty in the wake of taxes and duties.
Sources said that smuggled milk is made of America, Turkey, Holland, Korea and India. All of the milk was smuggled from these countries by different routs especially from Afghanistan.
A team of customs investigation on Monday presented the accused Zahid Rasheed before the court of Ch Aqal Hussain special judge in the court of customs taxation and anti smuggling and asked for remand of five days to complete investigation from the accused. After listening arguments from both sides the customs court handed over the accused to investigation team for two days. Again on Wednesday he was produced before the court of Ch Aqal Hussain and investigation team asked for more two days that the court has approved for two more days.
Customs investigation and prosecution team presented him before the judge of the customs court and asked him for his physical remand that the court has approved for two days for investigation to dig out the more accused behind the smuggling act. Customs authorities registered a case against him under Pakistan Customs Act 1969.
