CBI officials close down unaccompanied baggage counter

Chennai: Following the arrest of nine customs officials from the unaccompanied baggage counter at the airport cargo complex on Tuesday, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials have closed down the counter for revaluation of the imported consignments and unaccompanied baggage to find out the extent of tax evasion allowed by the errant customs officials.
According to highly placed sources in the CBI, the counter has been closed down and the revaluation exercise may take two days to complete. CBI had found out that most of the imported consignments and unaccompanied baggage, courtesy NRIs arriving on transfer, had been under-valued or exempt from paying duty. The customs officials had accepted illegal gratification to make this possible. It had caused a loss of several crores of rupees to the government exchequer.
On Wednesday, CBI officials continued search and seizure operations based on information passed on to them by the three of the accused who are in police custody. "We have raided a few other places today based on details provided by the accused. We are in the process of recording the seizures. There are chances for registering a disproportionate assets case against the officials as the money involved is huge," a senior CBI official told The Times Of India.
26/11/09 K Praveen Kumar/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2009