Smuggled foreign goods recovered during raids. Photo: Customs officials
Karachi: Customs officials seized foreign smuggled cigarettes and other goods worth over Rs 10 crore during a raid on information about the presence of illegal contraband in Bolton Market.
According to the details, the Customs Intelligence team raided the Karat Market of Bolton Market adjacent to MA Jinnah Road between Saturday and Sunday on information about the presence of foreign smuggled goods and seized a large number of smuggled cigarettes, perfumes, chocolates, Other illegal goods including shisha flavor were recovered.
According to customs officials, Bolton Market has been raided several times and illegal contraband has also been recovered, but traders seem to be profiting several times more from the smuggled goods as the customs team has recovered crores of rupees in each raid. The goods were recovered from secret boxes in the roofs of small shops. Later, the owners did not even come forward to claim ownership of the goods on which legal action was taken by sealing the smuggled goods and registering an FIR.
Last night also the locks of Karat market had to be cut and entered the market because there was a confirmed report that there were smuggled foreign goods and this happened, when the customs team entered the shops after cutting the locks, there were 90% of the illegal goods. Domestically smuggled goods were found. All the goods were put in dozens of sacks under the supervision of customs officers and the sacks were sealed and transferred to the relevant office of customs through trucks.
Customs officials say that strict surveillance was maintained throughout the operation to ensure that no baggage handlers or anyone smuggled Pakistani legal goods from the shops or the cash in the doors back and forth.
According to officials, Customs Intelligence Karachi has taken another action against smuggled cigarettes and these actions will continue continuously.
He said that during last night’s operation, the number of smuggled cigarettes is in lakhs, while other illegal goods were also recovered in large quantities, the initial value of seized smuggled cigarettes is more than 10 crore rupees, while other Equipment is separate.
Customs officials said that the shops which have been processed will be given 12 hours to show any official documents regarding payment of customs duty on their goods and to prove that their goods are legal, if their goods are released. And if this is not done, a case of raid will be registered and the recovered goods will be sealed by the government.
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3&appId=770767426360150”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.7”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));