KARACHI: At least 1,264 mobile phones and nine bottles of liquor worth Rs 25.20 million have been recovered from a PIA employee the other day, stated Additional Collector Air Freight Unit (AFU) Tahir Qureshi.
Addressing a press conference at old terminal (Haj terminal), the additional collector said that the Deputy Collector of Customs had information that an attempt would be made to smuggle a huge quantity of foreign origin contraband mobile phones and liquor on PIA flight No. PK-502 arriving from Turbat to Karachi with the active connivance of the PIA staff.
Sources also revealed that the PIA aircraft was originally deployed on Sharjah–Turbat sector and then for Karachi. In order to execute the information, a team of Customs officers was constituted for surveillance of the crew members, passengers and the baggage of the domestic flight in the Domestic Arrival Hall, he added.
During surveillance, a passenger later on identified as Fida Hussain son of Phaleen was suspected and intercepted carrying a black trolley bag without claim tag in the domestic Arrival Hall.
The scrutiny of his documents revealed that the said passenger was a PIA baggage attendant holding PIA Card No. 48129 who had traveled on the flight from Turbat to Karachi against Boarding Card bearing Seat No. 5A, Additional Collector Tahiq Qureshi added.
The trolley bag of the suspect was searched which resulted into the recovery of nine bottles of liquor. However, as a result of continued surveillance, seven (07) assorted trolley bags were lying abandoned on the conveyor belt. When no one came forward to claim the ownership of the trolley bags and hand bags, the passenger was asked whether these packages belong to him or not. But he could not give a satisfactory reply. However, officials checked all the packages and found 1,264 mobile phones worth Rs 25. 20 million.
The passenger was arrested and a 10-day remand was obtained from the court of special judge (customs and taxation) Karachi. Further investigations is in progress.
It is worth mentioning that in the past few months, the customs Preventive has seized a huge quantity of mobile phones, gold jewelry, medicines and other merchandised worth millions of rupees.
