13 June 2004	Sunday	24 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, June 12: The customs intelligence has completed its investigation into fake shipments of petrol to Afghanistan and registered a case against different companies including Attock Petroleum , a sister company of Attock Refinery in Rawalpindi, sources told Dawn here on Saturday.

According to the investigation conducted by a team of customs intelligence officials of Peshawar headed by Additional Director Jehanzeb Mehmood, different carriage companies in connivance with customs clearing agents, APL and Pir Baba private company caused Rs45 million losses in less than a month to the national exchequer.

Director-General of Customs Intelligence Maj-Gen (retd) Syed Usman Shah initiated the inquiry after the arrest of two customs clearing agents by the political administration at Torkham on May 28.

The two agents - Asadullah and Sharifuddin - were arrested when they got concerned stamps from customs officials on shipping bills of about seven oil-tankers, but were entering Afghanistan without any vehicles.

The investigation team detected such types of fake shipment bills of 27 oil-tankers at Torkham checkpoint in the month of May which caused Rs45 million losses to government exchequer, according to the FIR registered with the Customs Investigation and Prosecution branch of Customs House, Peshawar.

The investigation team also interrogated customs officials deputed at Torkham checkpoint and checked the official records. However, the officials while denying the charges said that the stamps on the shipping bills were not genuine.

These shipping bills were also not registered in official record books at Torkham, the sources said.

The investigation team had also checked the records of APL, but the Customs House had not yet provided the official records of the tax-free petrol exported to Afghanistan since the government allowed its export, the sources maintained.

The team had recently issued a warning to the Customs House Peshawar to provide official records of other company which also allowed private companies to export the tax-free commodity to Afghanistan, the sources said.

"The investigation has not yet been completed, but after getting some valid proofs, the customs intelligence has registered the FIR," said a senior official.

During the investigation, it was revealed that a large quantity of the petrol imported to Afghanistan were illegally smuggled back to the country through the porous border with the neighbouring country.

The selected companies which were allowed to purchase oil free of tax from APL and the state-owned company, either emptied the oil-tankers in the tribal region for selling it within the country or involved in smuggling after exporting them to Afghanistan, the official sources said.

The customs intelligence had got the proofs of causing losses in millions on monthly basis to the government exchequer through taxes evasion, the sources said.

Case has been registered against APL; Faisalzeb, owner of Khyber Trading Company; Asadullah and Sharifuddin, agents of Khyber Trading Company; Haji Abid, owner of Pir Baba company.

In the FIR, the Customs Intelligence charged these companies with fraud and tax evasions which caused the government huge losses, the sources maintained.

According to the sources, Pir Baba was the only private company allowed to purchase tax-free patrol from the APL.

The Pir Baba company having its office in Jalalabad was purchasing petrol from the APL at the rate of Rs15 per litre, the sources said.