Mumbai Air Cargo Customs busts Rs 26 Cr mobile phone smuggling racket
By TIOL News Service
MUMBAI, MAY 25, 2017: FOR a change let's move from gold to mobile phone smuggling. In an interesting case the officers of the Mumbai Air Cargo Complex intercepted 30 consignments which were declared to contain mobile accessories in the month of April. Thorough examination of the said consignments revealed that the description of the declared goods was vague so as to undervalue the consignment but it was revealed that most goods were branded products. Moreover, certain expensive products were not being declared at all to the Customs Authorities and were being attempted to be smuggled out of Air Cargo Complex.
Searches were conducted at the official and residential premises of the custom brokers and importers at various locations across Mumbai. Investigations have revealed a criminal nexus between importers and customs brokers, wherein, an import export code (IEC) is taken on the name of a bogus / proxy importer. The credentials of these proxy importers are not verifiable in as much as that the registered premises are not in existence or the concerned importer is not found at a particular address. These bogus IECs are then used by custom brokers to carry out the imports of actual importers.
Investigations have further revealed that there are certain entities registered in Hong Kong, China and Chinese Taipei which are suppliers for most of the consignments of mobile accessories. Certain incriminating documents have also been recovered during the search operations which revealed that custom brokers in collusion with the real importers used to fabricate invoices and packing lists in their offices. These documents are then submitted for the purpose of customs clearance. This racket is being run by a closed group of customs brokers. As per the official press release, so far three customs brokers namely M/s Ryan Sea Air Agents, M/s H.P Joshi and Company and M/s Chitalia Logistics Pvt. Ltd. have been identified as being the key persons behind executing this fraud. During the course of interrogation the persons concerned with these firms have admitted to their offences. Further, the evidence points to there being other custom brokers in this network as well.
Accordingly, the Customs has arrested five persons in this connection. All the arrested accused were produced before the CMM Court, Mumbai and have been granted remand till June 6, 2017. Using the said modus-operandi around four hundred consignments have been cleared by them in the past and Customs Duty amounting to Rs.26 crores has been evaded.
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