FBR to Take Action After Multi-Million Rupee Mobile Phone IMEI Corruption Scandal

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to take legal action in the whitewashing of more than 10,000 mobile phone IMEI scams.

Sources told ProPakistani that PTA, on the basis of the application received, wrote a letter to FBR asking to carry out the investigation as per the law.

Subsequently, FBR headquarters have also directed chief collector North to submit a report on the matter as early as possible.

According to the document, Customs Collectorate Islamabad has registered FIRs against two importers namely Al-Hamd Enterprises and Pak-China traders in whitewashing IMEIs of more than 10,000 mobile phones of known brands.

However, Customs Islamabad higher-ups are inexplicable in proceeding against the six customs officials who allegedly colluded with the importers and fraudulently examined, assessed, and released more than one hundred consignments of branded and expensive mobile phones causing the government a revenue loss of about Rs. 360 million.

According to the details, a person filed a complaint before the chief collector of customs Islamabad Imran Khan Mohmand that certain custom examiners and appraisers of Islamabad Customs Collectorate had colluded with the importers.

The complainant alleged that even after the post-clearance audit department of FBR had caught the scam and had asked the Islamabad Customs Collectorate to fully unearth the revenue losses caused, the authorities had restricted themselves only to the audit of six consignments.

In these consignments, they found that the importers had declared 9,946 mobile phones on their import documents before the customs but the six examining officers and appraising officers fraudulently examined and assessed to duty and taxes only 5,989 mobile phones releasing the remaining 3,957 mobile phones without duty, and taxes, whitewashing their IMEI numbers and helping the fraudulent importers get PTA approvals without paying any taxes.

The complainant asked the chief collector to extend the audit of this scam to the last two years in the public interest and to file an FIR against the perpetrators of fraud.

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 5,216 and there is no mention of the remaining more than 3,000 mobiles which shows that the customs collectorate was allegedly trying to save its own staff.