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The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has conducted a thorough survey of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) to identify routes/techniques adopted by organised gangs of smugglers at Pak-Afghan border.
Sources told Business Recorder on Wednesday that the Secretary General Revenue Division and CBR Chairman M. Abdullah Yusuf and his team of members have critically reviewed a video film on smuggling in tribal areas during the last board-in-council meeting.
The film made by Collectorate of Customs, Peshawar, has used hidden cameras to pinpoint smugglers'' routes and involvement of tribesmen in the illicit trade.
The video film has brought to light modus operandi of smugglers using different routes to bring non-duty paid commodities into Pakistan. This is for the first time that the customs authorities have made a serious attempt to document smuggling techniques for chalking out a strategy to combat it effectively. The video film has also showed goods allowed transit to Afghanistan and again smuggled back to Pakistan.
The video film has given details about the means of transportation and routes frequently ussed by smugglers in Fata/Pata. Sources said that usually local tribal persons are hired to make such movies to avoid any problems for the customs officials posted in NWFP and Balochistan.
Most of the smuggling took place after clearance of consignments by Pakistani customs at the Pak-Afghan border of Torkhum. Customs authorities complete all legal formalities and documentation for clearance of these consignments, which would return back into the country.
The consignments meant for Jalalabad cross the border under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA). During its destination to Jalalabad, the consignments containing goods/merchandise like electronic goods, cosmetics etc were offloaded at different places within the territorial jurisdiction of Afghanistan.
The goods were offloaded after crossing 30-40 kms area within the Afghan areas. The goods were returned back to Pakistan using mules, horses, camels, small wagons, pickups and other vehicles depending on the distance with the border areas.
The consignments were returned back in the form of convoys near Pak-Afghan border through un-frequent routes. There are thousands of small mountainous streams provide easy access routes to the smugglers in the border areas. Each and every stream is a route for smuggling, which is difficulty to check without large force of customs monitoring border areas.
It has been observed that the consignments were dumped into the illegal warehouses owned by known smugglers in Khyber Agency. These large warehouses were meant for dumping such smuggled goods for the last many years. A small quantity of goods was cleared from these warehouses at night to smuggle back to Peshawar using small pickups and carriers.
Sources said that the whole smuggling could not take place without the involvement of border agents, tribal lords, importers and investors behind this smuggling.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2007

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