Tk 382cr smuggled by 4 cos under guise of exports

Ibrahim Khalil Jewel: Four companies of the country smuggled Tk 382 crore against 1,780 invoices by creating fake documents under the guise of export. The companies that smuggled Tk 382 crore by creating fake documents are: Asia Trading Corporation, Sabiha Saiki Fashion, Emu Trading Corporation, and Ilham. Director General of the Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Fakhrul Alam gave this information at his office at Kakrail in Dhaka yesterday (March 14).
He said that against 780 shipments, Asia Trading Corporation smuggled Tk 282 crore, Emu Trading Corporation Tk 62 crore, Ilham Tk 17 crore, and Sabiha Saiki Fashion Tk 21 crore. He added that the exporting companies carry out fraudulent export activities with the help of their designated C&F agents ‘Limax Shippers Limited’.
Due to the use of EXP of other organizations, there is no opportunity to repatriate foreign currency to the country legally, as such EXP does not have any functionality, i.e. money laundering has occurred in this case. He also said that apart from those four institutions, there are complaints about such activities in some other institutions.
A team from Chittagong Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate raided the North Patenga depot on January 31 based on the information that goods are being exported abroad by forging export documents, but the value of the goods (foreign currency) is being repatriated to the country. This is proof of fraud.
Following this, manual checks were carried out on consignments of 9 products in seven containers. There are many non-declared products available. According to the declaration, T-shirts and ladies’ dresses
are supposed to be exported, but the physical examination found non-declared products including baby dresses, jeans pants, leggings, shirts and shawls. Chittagong Customs detectives were directed to investigate the matter of irregularities.
Investigation shows that the company named Sabiha Saiki Fashion exported 86 products in the past. In terms of export shipments, Sabiha Saiki Fashion exports 197 tonnes of men’s trousers, T-shirts, baby sets, bags, polo shirts, jackets, pants and hoodies. The price of which is about Tk 21 crore. Shipments are exported to UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.
Customs spies said that after checking the Esquida World System’s EXPs and reviewing data from Agrani and BRAC Banks, the EXPs contained in the said 86 bills of export were issued in favor of different exporting companies. As one EXP is not allowed to be used in more than one bill of export, even though EXP of different exporters are used in 86 bills of export, due to use of code 20 in field 24 of the bill of export, there is no auto match between the exporter of the EXP and the corresponding bill of export. XP has no functionality in this case. As a result, there is no opportunity to repatriate Tk 21 crore legally.
Similarly, the rest of the companies have fraudulently exported by using the EXP of other exporters. Because of this, money laundering has taken place as there is no opportunity to legally repatriate any foreign currency against the invoices.
According to Chittagong regional office, against 1 thousand 780 shipments, the quantity of goods is 18 thousand 265 metric tons, the declared value of which is Tk 382 crore.