Ashrafuddin Pirzada
LANDIKOTAL: Customs Authorities in Torkham conducted raids and arrested a custom clearing agent and sealed four customs agents’ offices allegedly involved in tempering the import goods documents that hit millions of rupees blow to the national exchequer, a customs official said on Monday.
Deputy Collector Customs appraiser Torkham Hammad Ahmed told The Fata Voice News Agency that on the formal orders by the civil magistrate and First Information Report(FIR), they conducted raids over the accused import clearing agents’ offices in Torkham Bazaar. He said they took computers and other relevant documents into their custody and called the offices. He said a custom clearing agent identified as Shah Jehan was arrested on the spot while they were searching for the rest of the accused customs agents. He said four clearing agencies based in Torkham were reported involved in the misconduct whose licence ls would be cancelled.
Hammad said the accused were tempering the fresh fruits import documents to show fake weight to customs authorities. He said the clearing agents had hit a blow of around Rs,9 million to the national exchequer by making counterfeit documents of fresh fruits and vegetables.
He said so far more than 200 truck documents had been tampered and fake documents were made for import consignments.
The official said proofs were also recovered from the offices searched and thoroughly examined.
He said the honourable Magistrate in Peshawar that he had issued the search warrant to conduct a search and collect more evidence. He said the arrested custom agent would be produced today before the court in Peshawar.
The customs official said warrant papers were also pasted on the walls of offices in the Torkham border Bazaar.
He said thorough investigation has been underway to determine the role of all those involved.
It is learnt that National Logistic Cell(NLC) employees running the import scanner and weight machine were also involved in the gross corruption
