KARACHI: The Customs Court granted pre-arrest bail to suspect Umair Nawaz son of Rab Nawaz, director of M/s Facilities Shipping Agency in mega mis-declaration scam.
On 16 September 2019, during the hearing, above-mentioned suspect appeared before the court along with his counsel who argued that suspect filed manifest with the customs authority as per bill of lading and to issue NOC for the release of the shipment to the consignee and to receive the freight charges and nothing else, lastly he requested that applicant may be granted bail before arrest.
After the hearing, court granted his bail against the surety of Rs100,000 and also issued notices to special prosecutor of customs department, investigation officer and called police papers. The court also directed suspect to join investigation, if and when required by investigation officer of this court.
According to the prosecution, importers imported goods and declared as per goods declaration of used clothing worth Rs275,488, marble slabs worth Rs289, 790, however, during the examination, customs officials found 27,750 kilograms betel nuts, old and used dialysis, new circuit breakers, copper refrigerator tubes, ball bearing & roller bearing, mobile phones, tablets assorted CCTV cameras digital video recorder, satellite receiver, finger print reader, face recognition, door access controller and cards etc value of Rs106 million approximately.
Investigation officer had submitted that above mentioned suspect and others namely Nasir Barkat Ali Junior Supervisor KICTL West Wharf, Waleed Ali, checker of M/s KICTL West Wharf, Ibrahim security desk officer of KICTL West Wharf Karachi, Muhammad Saleem checker of M/s KICTL West Wharf Karachi are found in illegal delivery of seized/confiscated betel nuts and other high value banned items by way of substitution/swapping of consignments through tempering of container numbers, seals, record etc and evaded the duty and taxes to the tune of Rs76.65 million.
Case was registered for violation of under Section 2 (s) (15) (16) of the Customs Act 1969 punishable under clause (89) of section 156 (i) ibid read with section 156 (2) of the Customs Act, 1969 further read with section 3 (1) of Imports & Export Control Act, 1950.