KARACHI. Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation-FBR, Anti-Smuggling (Customs), Karachi, during a late night raid on Tuesday took into custody more than 436 tons of plastic granules of different origins.
Addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, Director Asif Marghoob said that the goods were recovered from a godown located in Baldia, SITE areas by a team of Customs Intelligence, ASO. 67 tons of plastic granules is of Irani origin which is not importable and is a notified item.
The Irani origin plastic granules is brought only through unauthorized routes by way of smuggling. The Irani origin plastic goods have been formally seized under the Customs Act, 1969 and FIR has been lodged of the same.
The godown management was unable to produce any document of the owners of the smuggled goods on the spot. Efforts are being made to arrest the persons involved in the smuggling. 369 tons of plastic granules are a different origin including Thailand etc. but the documents of its legal import and payment of duty and taxes could not be produced on the spot.
The godown administration has been asked to produce the owners of the goods alongwith the documents. Muhammad Asif Marghoob Siddiqui, said the present raid is in continuance of the campaign launched to recover illegally stored smuggled goods from different places.
He further told that during past couple of weeks various premises have been raided and smuggled goods worth millions of rupees including electronic items, diesel, petrol, motor oil and cumin seeds etc have been seized.
A team of Customs Intelligence headed by Assistant Director Kaleem Ullah, including SIOs Muhammad Aslam and Intelligence Officers, Akmal Hashmi, Saif Hashmi, Munawwar Ali and Pervaiz Ahmed Zardari participated in the raid. The strategy of action was supervised by Additional Director Nadeem Ahsan. He added that further investigation in the case of plastic granules are underway.
The recent action is in line with the anti-smuggling strategy of FBR and direction of Director General of Customs Intelligence Lutfullah Virk. Despite scarcity of resources the action against smuggling with continue with full force and officers and staff have been instructed to be more vigilant in this regard.
