Smuggled goods seized

KARACHI: Directorate General Customs Intelligence (Anti-Smuggling) has made seizure of goods worth over Rs1.1 billion since the start of the current fiscal year 2015/16, a senior official of the directorate said on Monday.

Asif Marghoob Siddiqui, director of the Karachi Directorate, told The News that during the period smuggled diesel, electronic items, vehicles, tyres, liquor and narcotics, etc, were seized.

Siddiqui said that the anti-smuggling operation had been further speed up on the directive of FBR Chairman Nisar Muhammad and under the instructions of the Director General, Customs Intelligence, Imtiaz Ahmed.

He said that the directorate during the ongoing month made successful raids and recovered huge quantity of various smuggled goods worth millions of rupees.

During the anti-smuggling campaign in the December, 1,421 foreign origin smuggled tyres were seized from Bahadurabad and Azizabad, which were illegally brought without the payment of duty and taxes.

In another raid, a team of Customs Intelligence seized 148 smuggled gas cylinders from a godown located in the SITE area Karachi for which no Customs documents for the payment of duty and taxes were provided during questioning.

Besides 40,000 litres of smuggled Iranian diesel and petrol concealed in underground tanks was recovered from the jurisdiction of Saeedabad Police Station at Yousuf Goth Karachi.

In addition to the seizure, smuggled vehicles, Gutka and Black Tea were also taken in custody.

The director said that the value of smuggled seized items during the month were more than Rs95 million. Four people involved in smuggling were also arrested and FIRs have been lodged in the Customs court as per the procedure and the law, he added.

He attributed the latest seizure to the efforts of Additional Director Nadeem Ahsan who supervised these operations.