Smuggled cigarettes: DGII&IR raiding retailers in Karachi''s posh areas

Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue (IR) Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) raided the retailers of non-duty paid or smuggled cigarettes in posh areas of Karachi including Clifton and Defence. Sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the directorate is still raiding the posh localities of Karachi.
Only in one day, two major raids were conducted in markets of Clifton and Defence where over 10,000 sticks of cigarettes were seized. Similar raids were conducted in other posh areas of Karachi on Monday under the national drive to check the non-duty paid or smuggled cigarettes. In Lahore, the directorate has also conducted raid on a big distributor of non-duty paid/smuggled cigarettes and seized over 10,000 sticks of cigarettes. During the raid, the agency has also impounded record of last four years. On the basis of available data analysis, the unpaid duties and taxes have been worked out at around Rs 50 million only in case on one distributor.
After conducting a number of successful raids on the stockists and wholesalers of non-duty paid or smuggled cigarettes at by the Intelligence Unit of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK), similar exercise has been launched in Karachi and Lahore. The retailers of non-duty paid or smuggled cigarettes have started sending messages to their stockists/wholesalers to stop supply of non-duty paid stocks in view of expected raids of the directorate against the sellers of non-duty paid cigarettes/tobacco. Retailers are reluctant to take counterfeit stocks of cigarettes or non-duty paid items from their stockists and wholesalers.
Sources said that the dedicated intelligence unit of KP has detected several cases where importers were involved in import of material used in cigarettes, but the same imported material is being sold to the un-registered persons in KP. The agency would also conduct investigative audit of these units to check the details of purchasers of imported materials which could only be used in manufacturing of cigarettes.
Besides, basic objective of educating all those involved in cigarette/tobacco business, the national drive against the non-compliant cigarette manufacturers would broadly cover raids on the illegal warehouses of tobacco/cigarettes; investigative audit of the ''Green Leaf Threshing'' units, examination of tax record, clearance of KP-based cigarettes manufacturers and enforcement of excise laws within the territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.