Ordered paper, found sand in container

Customs officials in Chittagong on Saturday found 410 sacks of sand inside a container although it was brought in by a local firm under a declaration of importing A4 size papers worth $15,000 or Tk 12.81 lakh.

The importer, Progress Impex Ltd, said that it had been cheated by a Chinese company that sent the container.

The customs house is now examining the sands to find out whether valuable minerals ores were imported under false declaration, said Md Nooruddin Milon, deputy commissioner of the customs house.

The customs house has also lodged a money laundering case against the Banani-based Bangladeshi company.

The container reached the Chittagong port on August 18 and Progress Impex received the shipment by paying Tk 7.88 lakh as import duty. The container was sent against a letter of credit worth $15,440 opened with a branch of Brac Bank in Dhaka.

On August 28, customs officials barred the importer to unload the container when sand was found inside it. On September 1, the container was reopened in presence of customs commissioners.

“We have been a victim of fraudulence by the exporter,” Arif MA Akbar, managing director of Progress Impex Ltd, told The Daily Star.

“Why would we pay Tk 7.88 lakh as import duty to receive a container which is supposed to have only Tk 12.81 lakh worth of goods if there was any intention of money laundering? Why would we import high-duty product like A4 size paper?” he asked.

“We are now trying to reach the Chinese company through the related bank.”

This is not the first time an import container has arrived with separate products than that stated in the declaration. In fact, there are numerous incidents of money laundering when the customs house did not even file a case against the importers.

In the last five years, at least 25 containers arrived at the port city customs house, containing water in place of oil and ash in place of scrap. Once an empty container was brought in although it was supposed to contain mustard seeds.

In 2015, a Gazipur-based company imported cutter blade at $1,008 a kilogramme while it paid import duty of $1.5-$2 per kg. But no money laundering case was filed against the company. Rather, it escaped any serious customs case just by clearing the duty.

In 2016, a Dinajpur-based mining company, run by Petrobangla, imported seven containers of goods showing it paid Tk 79 lakh as fare for each container.

But later investigators found that the fare should not be more than Tk 4 lakh for each container. No case of money laundering was filed and the customs house did not take any step against the company yet.