The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested two former Deputy Commissioners of Customs posted at Jawaharlal Nehru Customs House, Mumbai (Maharashtra), in two separate cases.
The central agency has registered two separate cases against the two, Dinesh Fuldiya and Subhash Chandra, as well as two private persons on allegations of working as a syndicate to use passports of various persons who had stayed abroad for more than two years. They imported various items in the garb of them belonging to the passport holders.
The CBI conducted searches at seven places, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Patna and Samastipur (Bihar), Khargon District (Madhya Pradesh) etc on the premises of the accused and their accomplices which led to recovery of various incriminating documents/articles. The two former Deputy Commissioner were then arrested.
“It has been alleged that the said public servants entered into conspiracy with others at different times during their posting and misused the provision of Transfer of Residence provision under the Customs Act. It has been also alleged that the said syndicate used passports of various persons, who had stayed abroad for more than two years especially in Gulf countries to import various items including household items, electronic items and other unknown items by firstly undervaluing the goods and further concealing some other undeclared items along with the other declared items,” read the press release.
The CBI said, “The public servants were allegedly collecting illegal gratification through the private person from different customs house agent (CHA) and the illegal gratification so collected was routed to different accounts and persons known to the officers both through banking channel and hawala route. The said modus operandi was adopted by the accused for allegedly giving out of charge to the consignments brought by the CHAs with the help of customs officers and illegal gratification was allegedly paid to the public servants through the private person.”
