Mumbai: The officers of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Mumbai on Monday arrested a businessman in a case of customs duty evasion of Rs 30 crore. The agency officials said that several dummy Importer Exporter Code (IEC) were allegedly being mis-used by the accused for importing grossly undervalued and mis-declared branded luxury furniture leading to a substantial loss of Government revenue.
According to the DRI they had received intelligence information about import of grossly undervalued and mis-declared branded luxury furniture leading to Customs duty evasion. Acting on the said intelligence and preliminary analysis, searches were conducted at various places, live import was examined, evidence gathered and subsequent investigations have revealed the import of branded luxury furniture by misdeclaration and gross undervaluation for the purpose of evading applicable Customs duties and misuse of IEC to import branded luxury furniture.
"During the investigation, statements of various persons were recorded wherein role of a Oshiwara resident who appears to be as one of the orchestrators of the syndicate involved in gross misdeclaration and undervaluation surfaced. The accused's company was involved in importing branded furniture into India at undervalued prices by using shell companies based overseas and several shell companies in India. The imports were declared at lower values and the actual brand names were hidden from Customs, using dummy IECs in India to avoid detection and evade Customs duty," said a DRI source.
The agency sources said that in the ongoing investigation, more pieces of evidence are being gathered and the same needs to be investigated. "Other key members of the syndicate are yet to be apprehended and all out efforts are being made in this regard. Further, sources for the purchase of the luxurious imported furniture, transfer of money through illegal hawala channels etc. are being investigated. The investigations in this case is at a very crucial stage as the DRI is making all-out efforts to locate the other members of this international syndicate of gross undervaluation and misdeclaration," the official said.
