According to the Customs, there has been an attempt to evade duty of Tk 20 crore 48 lakh in the consignment of liquor and cigarettes coming in the name of two establishments of Uttara EPZ of Mongla and Nilphamari.
This information was informed after the inventory (manual examination) at the NCT CFS shed of the port on Monday night.
Md. Saiful Haque, Deputy Commissioner, Audit, Investigation and Research (AIR) branch of Chattogram Custom House, said that under the risk management of AIR and PCU branches of Customs House, the exporter, country of manufacture, importer's business type, address, product description, etc. are analysed by these two. False declarations on invoices provide initial clues about the importation of goods. Then on July 23 VIP Industries Bangladesh Private Limited of Mongla EPZ and on July 14 Dong Xin Industrial BD Company Limited of Uttara EPZ of Nilphamari were locked by the AIR branch in the National Board of Revenue's Asycuda World system, so that they could not be released from the port. A complete physical inventory of two 40-feet long containers was conducted on Tuesday in the presence of representatives of various government agencies. 31 thousand 492.5 liters of foreign liquor is available in 2 thousand 858 cartons in two consignments. The taxable value of which is Tk 3 crore 39 lakh. The revenue involved is about Tk 20 crores 68 lakhs.
The consignment declared at the port on July 2 was Textured Yarn in the name of VIP industries. In the declaration of this consignment which arrived at the port on July 12 in the name of Dong Xin Industrial BD Company Limited, the materials were polypropylene resin. The shipment is loaded onto the ship from Ningbao port in China.
10 lakh 60 lakhs of banned foreign cigarettes in 53 sacks and 53 thousand packets in the container belonging to VIP Industries were also found. As the bill of entry was not submitted to the custom house for clearing these two invoices, the identity of the C&F company could not be ascertained.
The official said that the Commissioner of Custom House has given instructions to identify the guilty persons and take exemplary punishment in these incidents.
