HYDERABAD: A nexus between customs officials and red sanders smugglers in illegally exporting the priced wood by air cargo has been exposed after a probe by the CBI and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
The racket came to light after seizure of multiple consignments of red sanders logs from Rayalaseema, weighing 3,293 kg, being exported illegally by listing them as pipes.
Three customs officials and two others have been named in the CBI FIR. The accused officials are superintendents of customs C Venkatesh and Anantha Padmanabha Rao, and inspector Ravinder Pawar of Bangalore Air Cargo complex. The other two were identified as customs house agent T Satish Kumar, whose licence was under suspension, and the illegal exporter Najeeb.
Red sanders misdeclared as pipes
The customs officials have been booked by CBI's Bengaluru anti-corruption branch for criminal conspiracy and also under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The red sanders consignment was seized in August by DRI Bengaluru zonal office and a case was booked for illegal export without valid DGFT licence. In the DRI probe it was revealed that customs house agent Satish was smuggling red sanders by bribing customs officials and misdeclaring the logs as industrial ductile pipes.
On December 21, CBI submitted its report detailing the conspiracy between customs officials and smugglers.
According to the CBI, Najeeb approached customs superintendent Venkatesh through Satish for facilitating clearance of shipments. Between June and July 2021, Najeeb brought a total of seven shipments of red sanders to Satish for clearance in the name of exporters Gurmehar Impex and TEAC Engineers. The probe revealed that the fir st shipment containing red Sanders was declared as industrial pump spares in the name of Gurmehar Impex.
"When the shipment was picked up for open examination on June 3, inspector Pawar took 12,000 bribe and submitted a false report stating items in the container were same as that declared in the invoice or shipping bill documents. Satish visited the premises of Air India Sats where the shipment was scanned and was met by Pawar who demanded 8 lakh for himself and superintendent Rao," CBI said in its report.
Satish paid 2.5 lakh to Pawar in cash and 1.25 lakh to Rao through banking channel, and a further 1.25 lakh later.
Another shipment name was changed from UDL Logisitcs Ltd to TEAC Engineers with UP address. These shipments were neither selected for open examination nor scanned by Air India Sats. The shipments contained red sander logs declared as industrial ductile pipes, the CBI said. Another two shipments were found by DRI in August in the name of Lakshmi Logistics.
.png?w=600)
