Money laundering: Over 200 passport holders put under customs vigilance

Al Amin :
Over two hundred passport holders accused in various cases like smuggling, duty evasion, transportation of prohibited and controlled goods have been kept under close vigilance of the customs officials.

For Keeping the passengers under vigilance, the administration of the Dhaka Customs House has formed four special teams to collect information of the passport holders, officials said.

The officials said the special teams will collect information of the last one year of the passengers and remain on duty at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) to bring them under close monitoring.

The country’s money is being laundered abroad through over and under invoicing in import and export and the functions of the government agencies are facing questions due to the incidents of the money laundering.

Under the circumstances, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has taken various measures to prevent the laundering.

Minhaj Uddin, Unit Chief and Joint Commissioner of the Custom House, said that each member of the specialized units has been given special training.

The primary objective is to prevent smuggling and money laundering. The members of the unit have already started working to achieve the goal.”

Earlier, the Customs Intelligent and Investigation Directorate (CIID) of the NBR recommended six measures for preventing money laundering.

The CIID suggested taking departmental action against officials responsible for inspection and customs clearance of export goods and instructing customs houses to allow exports by verifying the value and authenticity of products by identifying risky companies.

It also suggested determining the minimum export price of the category-wise goods by considering the cost of raw materials used in the export goods, wages, factory cost and production cost.

Implementing the recommendations, NBR directed the customs officials to make a list of clearing and forwarding agents, who are involved in over and under invoicing in export and import.

The HSIA is considered as a major route for money, gold and drug smuggling and the Dhaka Customs House is the major stakeholder to prevent anti-state activities.

As part of the protective activities, the customs house has kept more than 200 hundred passport holders, who are accused by the customs authorities of duty evasion, smuggling, transportation of prohibited and controlled goods and related cases.

The administration of the customs house also requested the immigration police to provide information on the traveling of the passport holders in the last one year.