Customs collectorate Islamabad has registered FIRs against two importers namely Al-Hamd Enterprises and Pak-China traders in a recently surfaced case of whitewashing IMEIs of more than 10,000 mobile phones of known brands.
According to FIR, Inspector Ijaz Ahmad and Appraiser Ayesha Jamil under the supervision of ADC Salaha Zakir Shah conducted an audit of 5 GDs of M/s Al-Hamd Enterprises which revealed that the company imported 9,946 while it presented 5,989 luxury phones for examination.
The customs collectorate claimed that the company did not disclose 3,957 imported phones to Customs staff, on this the staff declared these phones missing due to which a whopping loss of Rs. 238 million to the national exchequer. In another FIR, the customs team conducted an audit of one GD of Pak China Enterprises which revealed that the company declared 1,837 phones in the Webox system and only presented 218 phones for examination to customs staff.
Neither company disclosed 1,619 imported phones to Customs staff or the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Eventually, they also managed to obtain a Certificate of Compliance from PTA, as per the FIR.
Meanwhile, Customs staff while declaring these 1,619 imported phones missing and released the Webox report causing a loss of Rs. 122 million to the national exchequer.
Sources said that a citizen named Zohaib Hassan has approached the chief collector of customs, Islamabad for registration of an FIR against the importers as well as customs employees in this case.
The examiners in above said cases have fraudulently reported that more than 600 mobiles per GD are not found However, their IMEI numbers were mentioned in their declaration GDs, and he further mentioned in his application that when the list of these IMEIs was scrutinized, it was found that only 15 RMB/Pc Per I-phone mobile was paid and more than 8,299 IMEIs were whitewashed from tax list and given type approval which resulted in tax evasion of more than Rs. 360 million which seems to be the tip of the iceberg only.
Later, these phones and IMEIs were found active in the market which is a high-risk AML/CFT threat to the state.
Applicant Zohaib Hassan alleged that clearing agents Waseem Meo, Shakeel, and Jamil were true beneficiaries of the above-mentioned crime, as goods were delivered to these people, who have been exposed and are involved in this act of smuggling annd money laundering. It is pertinent to note that the post clearing directorate had forwarded this case to customs collector Islamabad to further probe into this matter.
The Islamabad collectorate had directed six customs officials including Inspector Raja Hamid, Inspector Faraz Hussain, principal appraiser Zia Hassan, Appraiser customs Effan Younis, and appraiser officers Saima and Faiza to submit a reply for tempering of the mobile GD system.
In the explanation memo, the Collectorate itself admitted that 8,299 mobile phones’ IMEI numbers were whitewashed while the FIRs registered about only 5216 and there is no mention of the remaining more than 3,000 mobiles which shows that the customs collectorate was allegedly trying to save their own above-mentioned staff.
This business of Iphone is going on for some years. Customs is involved in full scale. The Agents is well connected with Customs as well customs intelligence.
The custom intelligence and custom staff must included in this case because the agents didn’t take this action without helping both of these.