The CIU of the customs department on Friday arrested a customs clearance agent for helping 19 companies export calcium carbonate in the name of sodium iodide over an 11-month period.
The Central Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the customs department on Friday arrested a customs clearance agent for helping 19 companies export calcium carbonate in the name of sodium iodide over an 11-month period.
They mis-declared the cheaply available calcium carbonate as sodium iodide to avail of the high duty drawback amount applicable to the latter. Duty drawback is an incentive paid by the government to export companies for the foreign exchange they help the government earn.
The total exports were valued at Rs21 crore. The companies fraudulently availed of a duty drawback of Rs1.20 crore.
Singh was nabbed in Navi Mumbai and remanded to judicial custody till August 27, a customs officer said. Defence lawyer Ravi Hirani said, “My client is innocent and has been falsely implicated.”
The fraud came to light in January 2010 when the CIU intercepted eight calcium carbonate consignments, mis-declared as sodium iodide, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. A probe revealed that, between March 2009 and January 2010, 19 companies had carried out exports similarly. Singh had done the clearance for them.
Singh procured calcium carbonate from a dealer at Masjid Bunder. For the mandatory testing of the chemical, he sent actual sodium iodide he bought from Dawa Bazar. Four of his associates arranged for forged documents and import-export code papers. He cleared 225 consignments and received Rs90,000 per container.
The customs officer did not specify the action to be taken against the companies.
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