KARACHI: The Pakistan Customs staff has foiled a bid to smuggle contraband items worth Rs 15 million at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi.
While addressing a news conference at Karachi Air Freight Unit (AFU) on Thursday, Additional Collector Syed Asad Raza Rizvi said that information was received through Deputy Collector Amjad Aman Laghari that a huge quantity of foreign origin commercial goods would be smuggled into the country through Emirate Airlines Flight No. EK 610 under the guise of personal baggage of some passengers.
Accordingly, the customs staff was deployed to keep strict and incognito vigilance on the movement and clearance of the passengers arriving by the said flight. The above mentioned flight arrived at the airport and the passengers were cleared under strict watch, the officer added.
In the meantime two passengers later on identified on as Aslam Mengrani and Muhammad Jawaid were suspected using green channel facility and diverted towards scanning machine and their baggage consisted of seven bags was scanned, which indicated the presence of various commercial goods.
Therefore, all the packages were examined, which led to the recovery of mobile phones, medicines, memory cards, USBs, Tabs, Mac books, ipads, laptops, cameras, mobile projector, etc in huge quantity. The value of goods according to customs valuation is Rs 5.5 million; however, the market value is more than 15 millions.
The duty/taxes involved are more than Rs 3 millions on these goods. All the goods were seized along with containers thereof and traveling documents of both the passengers and they were arrested for the violation of Customs Act, 1969. However, efforts are under way to arrest the other accomplices behind the scenario. FIR is lodged and the remand of both accused persons has been granted by the Customs Court.
