KARACHI: Pakistan Customs Export Port Qasim have detected a mega scam of smuggling of plastic material under the garb of scrap from Karachi Export Processing Zone Authority KEPZA which caused huge lose to government exchequer in last one year worth millions.
Sources told Customs Today that on Wednesday night they intercepted a suspicious goods declaration (GD) filed to the clear a truck loaded with plastic material but on scrutinizing the GD it appeared that according to the documents of the GD a company namely M/s Jubilee was clearing scrap against the duty and taxes up to 8 cents but on physical examination it surfaced that the truck number JT-1204 was filled with plastic material which was meant to be cleared after the duty and taxes up to 28 cents.
According to the customs officials they confiscated the consignment and a detection report was being prepared but during initial investigations it was revealed that invoices of M/s Jubilee Company was misused by the active mafia of smugglers and the consignment was loaded from the premises of another company namely M./s Pakwa with help of some corrupt officials of KEPZA
More, officials came to know that these activities have been happening during last one year and the mafia caused huge lose to government.
According to the source there have been several reports that machinery and raw material imported duty-free for EPZs were pilfered into the local market resulting in huge losses to the national economy, a whole mafia has been involved in the scam from last many years under the supervision of master mind Yaqoob contractor and some of the factory owners and customs staff.
This all was started when during the month of January a case was registered against Muhammad Fahad of M/s AAA Package and three others Burhan Uddin Azeem, Muhammad Aziz and Qadir of M/s Azeem Tex and Muhammad Aziz Ahmed of Al-Noor Shippers and Muhammad Mubeen of M/s Insiya Packages for getting many containers cleared duty free for EPZA but the stuff of these containers sold out in open market by using the same tactics which have been used by M/s Jubilee and M/s Pakwa companies.