KARACHI: On the directions of Chief Collector South Abdul Rasheed Shaikh, the Customs Port Qasim has sought information about the importers and relevant details to broaden the investigations into the shipping company M/s MSC in acetic anhydride smuggling scam, Customs Today has learnt.
According to the details, the Customs Investigation Unit (CIU) of Port Qasim Collectorate has taken this initiative after obtaining prior approval from Chief Collector Appraisement South and Collector Port Qasim Chaudhary Jawaid because it has surfaced in the investigation that the approximately 24 tonne of acetic anhydride was being tried to be smuggled by using the name of a fake importer company M/s Pak Traders from Peshawar.
When customs officials tried to locate the office and management of M/s Pak Traders they found nothing on the ground which proved that the company was fake and existed just on papers.
“We have found nothing about the importer even we have checked the record from recent pas but no import was found related to M/s Pak Traders that’s why now we have only one way to carry the investigations forward and that’s shipping company that transported the acetic anhydride’s consignment from Poland to Karachi port” an officials told Customs Today on the condition of anonymity.
It is pertinent to mention that according to the details the officials of the Pakistan Customs have foiled a smuggling bid of a huge quantity of dual use precursor acetic anhydride worth around $1.5 million. The Acetic Anhydride, a main ingredient for preparing narcotics substance as well as use in making highly explosives by the terrorist outfits was shipped from Poland for Peshawar based importer.
On 2nd February, the Customs Collectorate Port Mohammad Bin Qasim, Karachi claimed to have seized a huge quantity of 15,520 liters equivalent to 16.7 metric tons of pure grade highly sensitive dual use precursor acetic anhydride, a major component of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and also used in illicit manufacturing of heroin.
After this scam was busted, the officials of Pakistan Custom Port-Qasim has approached the officials of Poland to seek assistance to trace out the actual culprits involved in the smuggling of duel purposed chemical acetic anhydride which is used to make heroine, explosives and bombs.
