The Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR’s) customs department seized urea fertiliser and sugar worth Rs392 million from Balochistan’s Khuzdar during three raids as part of a major anti-smuggling operation, it emerged on Wednesday.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the FBR said during the ongoing operations against the smuggling of essential commodities, Customs Intelligence seized 41,883 bags of urea having a market value of Rs167.53 million, and 44,957 bags of sugar having a market value of Rs224.79m.
Anti-smuggling operations intensified in the province following the transfers of all senior field customs officers from Balochistan last week on the directive of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Customs Intelligence Director General Faiz Ahmad had been tasked to monitor anti-smuggling operations in the province to foil attempts of smuggling to Afghanistan.
A day ago, the premier ordered tough action against smugglers of wheat, sugar, urea and other commodities which have caused massive increases in prices of these and other commodities in the country.
He had directed Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to personally visit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to meet provincial authorities and submit a report in this regard.
The FBR said operations during the last week successfully foiled attempts to smuggle huge quantities of 86,840 bags of essential commodities worth Rs392.32m to Afghanistan, which was a severe blow to the smuggling mafia.
It added that Customs Intelligence received credible information that a huge quantity of urea and sugar had been dumped at different places in Balochistan for onward smuggling to Afghanistan.
On May 1, a joint team of Customs Intelligence searched a warehouse of a local smuggler in Khuzdar and recovered 26,407 bags of urea and 8,209 bags of sugar from the premises.
The same team conducted the raid on another specific compound, Shafiullah Crushing Plant in the Khuzdar District, which resulted in the recovery of 10,630 bags of Pakistan-origin urea and 3,770 bags of sugar from different areas of the open compound.
The third raid was conducted on the Arbab Complex — a local shop market in Khuzdar — and led to the recovery of 22,978 bags of sugar and 2,646 bags of urea from 33 different shops.
According to the statement, the owners of the premises in the three cases could not produce documents to show the legality of the goods stored as per the Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Balochistan Agriculture and Cooperatives Department against the hoarding, illegal transport and smuggling of essential items (urea and sugar).
Earlier, in two operations during the past two days, Balochistan Customs Intelligence also seized 2,200 bags of urea and 10,000 bags of sugar at Gadani and Noshki.
