KARACHI: Regional Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation (I&I), under the leadership of Director General Customs Intelligence Faiz Ahmad Chadhar adopted a comprehensive policy against smuggling and seized smuggled goods worth Rs10.5 billion during last five months.
The Director General lauded the efforts of Director I&I Habib Ahmad and his team including Additional Directors Afzal Watto, Inamullah Wazir, Deputy Directors Wasif Malik, Abeer Javed and Saud Khan.
According to the details that that seized smuggled goods include fabric, cigarettes, betel-nuts, tyres, auto parts, electronics and others. Customs Intelligence and Investigation has been able to make seizures of smuggled goods valuing more than Rs5 billion in 5 months (July 23- Nov 23) which are 570 percent higher than the seizures of smuggled goods worth Rs747 million in the corresponding period of 5 months of last year.
As second part of the strategy, supervision of all import and export Customs clearances at seaports and airport was improved through enhanced vigilance. As a result cases of under-invoicing, mis-declaration and misuse of concessions, worth more than Rs5.4 billion were made on the trade side du the last 5 months.
Customs Intelligence and Investigation, during different intelligence based operations (IBOs) registered five cases of Money Laundering involving illegal transfer of $150 million Important thing is that in these cases the AML Circle of FIA was also taken on board so that the Hawala/Hundi operators through which this amount was transferred abroad could be tracked down.
It is pertinent to mention here that that information based enforcement actions by Customs I&I hi became one of the factors that resulted in significant increase in revenue on imports collected through the four Karachi based Appraisement Collectorates and one Air Fright Unit.
