FBR wing seeks to smoothen importers' profiling system

Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation (DGI&I)- FBR (Customs Enforcement) is planning to recommend to the Board to streamline importers profiling system, following brazen move committed by one of the importers to clear misdeclared consignment through Green Channel of Port Qasim Collectorate.
Talking to a select mediapersons, Shaukat Ali Director General DGI&I said that the involvement of importer granted 'Green Channel status' in the clearance of misdeclared consignment had made the whole importers' profiling system for granting red, yellow and green channel status suspicious. He said that the system needed to be streamlined as around 45 per cent of country's import was being cleared through Green Channel.
Keeping the said in view, the Directorate is now contemplating to recommend the FBR to revisit the mechanism of importers' profiling system. Chief DGI&I said that the Directorate under the directives of chairman FBR had now nominated three customs officials - principal appraiser Asad Aleem, principal appraiser Muhammad Ibrahim (R&D) and appraiser Akbar Chandio along with other accused persons in the case.
Elaborating details of the case, he claimed that DGI&I had successfully foiled an attempt of fraudulent clearance of huge quantity of dutiable goods of foreign origin including fabrics, cosmetics, mobile accessories, etc under the garb of import of iron/steel remeltable scrape from collectorate Port Qasim through green channel facility. The market value of the seized goods is over Rs 73 million, involving duty and taxes to the tune of Rs 9.3 million.
"The department has detected numerous misdeclaration cases where importers obscured machines and other equipment in scrape consignment but this was the first time in my career when I saw such a brazen move committed by the importer, who blatantly imported said goods sans mixing with scrape items but declared the same as iron/steel remeltable scrape with an attempt to clear it through green channel facility," he said.
Shaukat further said that Directorate on the basis of credible information seized four containers imported from Jable Ali Dubai and Hong Kong by M/s Khurram Steel Mills Gujranwala and all containers were declared as re-meltable scrape. He said that the WeBOC system had cleared the goods as re-meltable scrape in connivance with the aforesaid customs officers.
Moreover, he said that the accused importer Khurram Iqbal had imported around 130 consignments since he got registration in 2012 and added that department out of his total imports had declared 40 consignments dubious, which were imported from China and UAE.
He said that the preliminary investigation revealed that the importer and clearing agent and their accomplices including three customs officers had exploited the green channel facility, which was exclusively provided to the reputable importers to facilitate their imports. Further investigation in past clearance and role of other culprits in the scam are in progress. No arrest has so far not been made, the department is doing all out efforts to nab the accused persons nominated in the FIR, he maintained.