Betel nuts worth in millions have reportedly been replaced with date seeds at State warehouse SITE by the officials of Directorate General Intelligence & Investigation (DGI&I) Customs, FBR, Karachi. This was revealed by warehouse in-charge Mehmood Akber, IO, Auction, who in his letter informed the authorities that one of the intelligence officers posted at ASO, DGI&I-Customs, FBR, visited at state warehouse, SITE at 0300 hours on February 3, 2019 with myriad number of gunny bags and registered it as betel nuts case in the inventory.
Mehmood in his letter stated that he was informed by sepoy Afaq Qureshi, who performed his duty in night-shift that the said intelligence officer of ASO, DGI&I-Customs, FBR, arrived at the place in night and left large number of gunny bags.
During inspection next morning, it was revealed that these gunny bags were filled with date seeds. Mehmood in his letter claimed that he made videos and captured pictures of the said goods in order to avoid any action against him and informed the authorities, accordingly.
In response, the DGI&I-Customs, FBR has ordered to form a committee to conduct physical snap audit of confiscated betel nuts lying in the State warehouse SITE area Karachi for the period June 2018 to January 2019 and directed the committee to furnish the report within seven days.
However, sources told that no audit has been initiated so far despite the order.
Replying to a question, sources told that the performance of ASO DGI&I-Customs, FBR, remained disappointing during the aforesaid period but MCC, Preventive showed phenomenal performance and made considerable number of anti smuggling cases during the same period, raising transparency issues against ASO team of DGI&I Customs, Karachi, who were at that time reportedly involved patronizing smugglers and doing massive corruption.
"This possibility could not be ruled out that date seeds are placed at state warehouse SITE to maintain the quantity of stolen betel nuts, which were returned back to the smugglers against undue gain by the intelligence officers of ASO DGI&I-Customs, FBR, Karachi especially after this written complaint lodged by IO auction Mehmood.
When contacted, Irfan Javeed, a newly posted director at DGI&I-Customs, Karachi termed the audit order as routine matter and showed his incognizance over the issue.
Meanwhile, sources told that the incumbent top hierarchy in FBR was keen to streamline the functioning of its regional offices and did massive transfer posting to sideline bureaucrats, infamous for their misconduct but unfortunately field officers remained unchanged, who the sources believed may create hurdles in yielding desired fruits for the board.
The same was happened in DGI&I-Customs, FBR where new director has been posted but the field officers who used to minting money for high-ups in Karachi and Islamabad in past and were involved in imposing embargo on the entry of media persons to hide massive corruption in the department, are still working at same positions and fearlessly doing illicit activities, they said and added that they had influence to run operations at DGI&I-Customs, FBR, Karachi for their purposes.
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