The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has seized fake mobile phone accessories and cosmetics imported from China valued at Rs. 8 crore.
According to C. Rajan, Additional Director General, DRI, the department received information that a Delhi-based gang imported Nokia mobile phone accessories, cosmetic items and other consumer goods through the Tuticorin port from China by wrongly declaring the goods and using bogus codes.
The DRI also received information that the same gang had brought four more containers from China to Tuticorin. While documents for one of the four containers were filed in the name of M/s SPE Manufacturing Company, Ghaziabad, the remaining three containers were lying uncleared for more than one month.
When the DRI verified the genuineness of the importer, M/s SPE Manufacturing Company, Ghaziabad, it was found to be bogus. Thereafter, all four containers were confiscated for examination. In the Import General Manifest, the description of goods furnished was ‘mobile accessories' in respect of the three containers and the documents said one container had ‘shoes.'
On opening the containers declared to contain mobile phone accessories, large numbers of cartons containing mobile housing units of Nokia brand were found, all stacked in the front portion of the container and the rear portion had cartons containing cosmetic items of leading brands.
Subsequent detailed examination of the cartons resulted in the recovery of about 4 lakh pieces of Nokia mobile phone housing units (printed Made in Finland) and 3 lakh mobile phone batteries with Nokia stickers. Moreover, cosmetic items of leading brands such as Olay (2 lakh items) Loreal and Revlon (each 10,000) and Nivea (8,000) were found in the container.
The estimated market value of above goods is around Rs.7 crore.
On opening the container declared to contain shoes, there were 10,000 pairs of Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok brand shoes, which all appear to be fake ones and had ‘Made in Indonesia' and ‘Made in Vietnam' labels. The estimated market value of the above goods is around Rs.1 crore.
As these goods were not supported by proper documents, the officers seized the same on Thursday under the provisions of the Customs Act 1962 read with the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940.
“Preliminary investigations have revealed that fake Nokia mobile phones are assembled in Delhi with these mobile phone accessories and sold in the market as genuine ones. The DRI is on the look out for the real person behind the imports,” said Mr. Rajan.
