IMRAN KHAN
KARACHI: Pakistan Customs have sent the recommendations to ascertain the role of M/S TPL Trakker Company Ltd in E-Movers’s pilferage and smuggling case, E-Movers, a company wich belongs to the brother of a high level custom official.
The recommendations have been sent to the Directorate of Transit Trade Karachi by the Customs Adjudication Collectorate Quetta for further prob.
According to the details available with the Indus Gazette, a consignment of clothes was imported thorough Karachi Port, meant to be transported into Afghanistan by E-Movers compnay, in the last months of 2021.
But the consignment, instead of being transported to Afghanistan, the vehicle was taken to the warehouse of a local textile factory in Baluchistan, where the container was emptied after breaking the customs seals and then loaded with fertilizer.
Upon receiving the information, the team of Directorate of Transit Trade Quetta raided and confiscated the goods and seized the vehicle along with the container and initiated legal proceedings, after which its report was sent to the Customs Adjudication Collectorate Quetta for decision.
The investigation revealed that since 2017 at least 5 cases of pilferage of goods, smuggling and tax evasion had been registered against this company in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar.
In case, the Adjudication Collectorate has imposed a fine of Rs 10 million on the companies and Rs 500,000 per person on 5 accused, including directors Mansoor Sheikh, Azizullah Afridi, Muhammad Issa Afridi, driver and cleaner of the vehicle.
For further investigation, recommendations have been sent to the Directorate of Transit Trade in Karachi to revoke the licenses of the companies, asking them to take further action against the customs officers who issued the licenses, it is also recommended to ascertain the role of TPL Trakker company.
According to customs sources, FBR has awarded a very lucrative contract to TPL Trakker Company to keep an eye on the containers for the prevention of pilferage enroute from Karachi to Afghanistan via Torkham and Chaman borders.
Sources further informed that, since the TPL Trakker company is earning huge profit, it is the sole responsibly of company to keep strict monitoring on each and every transit vehicle and if any vehicle is deviated from the route, the company is bond to report to the concerned customs officials timely with the details of exact location.
But in various recent and previous cases, it has been revealed that TPL Tracker Company has failed to detect the deviations on time, in the result, goods worth billions have been stolen from containers bound for Afghanistan and supplied to the local market, including cloth, electronics items, wine, cosmetics, auto parts etc every year.
According to customs officials, tracking and monitoring Transit Trade vehicles have become much more important ever, as new contrives including Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, China, Russia and Iran are expected to join mutual trade through Pakistan, whereas Afghanistan and India already using Pakistan for their mutual trade.
An official, while expressing his concern stated that “if the pilferage of goods into Pakistan continues like this, then potentially along with prohibited, non-prohibited goods the sensitive types of items could be smuggled and supplied into the country”.
