KARACHI: The second consignment of the smuggled betel nuts has been intercepted by the Customs Appraisement East Karachi within the last five days as R&D team of Appraisement East has seized 25.250 MT betel nuts smuggled by the Lahore based company under the garb of galvanized plain sheets.
After introduction of additional health and safety requirements by the government on import of betel nuts, unscrupulous elements are using illicit means to smuggle betel nuts under garb of miscellaneous goods through mis-declaration.
Under the supervision of Collector Saeed Akram Collectorate of Appraisement East, Karachi is endeavoring hard to curb these elements for the safety of general public.
The Collectorate foiled another such attempt on Thursday, information was received to the Deputy Collector Research and Development (R&D) Muhammad Ali Malik that some Lahore based importers are misusing the facility of transshipment for smuggling of betel nuts into the country through mis-declaration the information further revealed that the betel nuts after getting cleared from Karachi port would be replaced with the goods mis-declared in the relevant goods declaration and en route to the final destination.
The collector constituted the team of the officers (R&D) comprising Deputy Collector Muhammad Ali Malik and Principal Appraiser Dost Muhammad beside other officers for strict survelliance to curb the menace.
Under the supervision of the Principle Appraiser R&D Dost Muhammad, the team raided at Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT) and intercepted consignment of M/s Ajmair Impex Lahore, comprising of one forty feet container number CRXU-9852726 en route to Lahore.
Detailed examination was carried out by the R&D team resulted into the recovery of 25.50 MT betel nuts that was cleared under the garb of galvanized plain sheets.
The recovered betel nuts have been confiscated and seized under proper Musheernama prepared on the spot.
Preliminary inquiry revealed that M/s Ajmair Impex based in Lahore has imported the consignment from Jebel Ali UAE, declaring the description of the good as galvanized plain sheets smelling interception by R&D team they did not filed any goods deceleration for the clearance of the goods from the PICT despite laps of eight days from the arrival of the vessel.
The open market value of the seized betel nuts is around Rs 65 million while the duties and tax tried to be evaded calculated as more then Rs 5 million.
It is pertinent to mention that five days earlier another Lahore based company M/s Al-Noor tried to smuggle betel nuts through Transshipment permit and the consignment was fix towards Lahore dry port to be cleared.
