KARACHI: The Collectorate of Customs Airport Karachi has uncovered imports worth Rs3.2 billion through two allegedly fake companies operating as ‘market IDs’, seeking JIT for a trade-based money laundering (TBML) investigation.
According to the investigation report, the case began as a routine crackdown on internet routers imported without a PTA certificate but became a probe by the Collectorate of Customs Airport Karachi on instructions from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
The Collectorate identified 10 goods declarations covering 71,815 routers cleared through the Airport Facilitation Unit (AFU) without the mandatory PTA certificate, violating SRO 1172(I)/2021 and import policy requirements. The consignments were confiscated after adjudication and traced to two companies, which filed complaints before the Federal Tax Ombudsman about the seizures, but both were dismissed.
The case then took an unexpected turn. Several people approached the Collectorate claiming ownership of fragments of goods within single declarations and demanding separate release, prompting officials to kick off thorough scrutiny of these two companies.
Later, officials found both were paper companies registered in the names of front men and used as market IDs by undisclosed operators. One’s declared address was a rice and flour shop, and the other’s was a rented family home. One firm was registered with the FBR only as a ‘Service Provider / General Order Supplier,’ not as an importer, suggesting a fiscal fraud under Section 32A (1)(b) of the Customs Act, 1969, a predicate offence under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, the report said.
On the digital trail, the WeBOC user IDs of these two companies were accessed from 2,983 and 2,732 unique IP addresses respectively, with 1,048 addresses common to both.
The report said genuine importers typically log in from the same addresses, and that multiple hidden operators appeared to use the same NTN and WeBOC identities for imports, misdeclarations, policy violations, and illicit fund transfers.
The proprietors’ combined declared capital was just Rs2.2 million when imports began and the highest combined capital later declared was about Rs77.7 million, which, the report said, would not cover even a month of such import activity.
Customs raised the declared value of the goods by Rs1.3 billion during assessment. For routers alone, the declared value of Rs97 million was enhanced to Rs565 million, which investigators cited as evidence of systematic under-invoicing.
Despite local sales of roughly Rs2.9 billion, the companies paid almost no sales tax. Many sales went to blacklisted, suspended or inactive buyers, or to entities whose registered business did not match the goods purchased, the report said.
It also said the imports were financed by undisclosed funds belonging to hidden beneficial owners and added that these companies shared 108 local buyers and 12 foreign suppliers, with one supplier accounting for 61 percent of their combined imports.
Their trading moved in parallel, and their sales tax returns were often filed minutes apart, which the report treated as evidence of coordinated control rather than independent operation.
The report further claimed that after the Collectorate refused to release the goods and began examining beneficial ownership, people linked to the entities pressured and threatened officials and ran a concerted campaign against the Collectorate, describing it as the work of an organized cartel seeking illegal clearance.
The Collectorate has proposed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of anti-money-laundering agencies from Customs, Inland Revenue and/or the FIA, and referral of the case for investigation of money laundering and beneficial ownership under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010. It also recommended suspending or cancelling both WeBOC user IDs under Section 155F and referring the matter to RTO-II Karachi for income tax and sales tax proceedings.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026