Hyderabad: Directorate of Revenue intelligence has busted a smuggling racket by arresting five persons and seizing half a crore worth of foreign cigarettes smuggled in here from Dubai.
Sleuths intercepted the consignments when they were brought as air cargo to pass through the Shamshabad airport.
DRI officials say the same gang had successfully smuggled cigarettes worth 90lakhs earlier in the name of a fictitious company. In the present swoop, DRI seized 8.5 lakh cigarettes from the air cargo complex. The racket was trying to smuggle the Djarum Black brand cigarette for sale in India, showing the large number of packs as ‘engineering goods, paper-making machine spare parts and computer hardware’. The gang gave fictitious company names and created fake ID cards and authorization letters,” said MK Singh, additional director general of DRI.
The racket also forged fake manual bills of entry to evade enforcement checks. “They also forged endorsement statements and signatures of customs officers,” said the official. He said the gang had, in the past, smuggled in five consignments, successfully, through the air cargo complex. The total value of the cigarettes was ' 90 lakhs.
DRI produced the five accused before a special judge, who sent them to judicial remand. A hunt is on for the rest of the gang-members.
