Pakistan Customs has uncovered an alleged Rs1.259 billion petroleum tax fraud involving the illegal removal of imported MOGAS RON-92 from bonded warehouses.
Authorities say forged documents and fraudulent declarations were used in the scheme, with an investigation now underway into those allegedly involved.
Directors of Flow Petroleum (Pvt.) Ltd. Muhammad Waris and Muhammad Asif were involved in this massive fraud, and an FIR was registered against them.
The FIR also looks into the involvement of PAPCO in the movement of fuel in the White Oil Pipeline as part of the investigation.
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The intelligence operation enabled the authorities to discover what they say is the biggest case of petroleum tax evasion in the country, and averted further losses to the national exchequer.
In the FIR, it is revealed that 6,975.454 metric tonnes (9,638,308 litres) of imported petrol were removed without paying any Customs duty, taxes or Petroleum Levy.
Investigators say that the fuel was diverted by the use of fake Safe Transportation (ST) Goods Declarations, forged documents and deliberate misdeclarations to circumvent the legal import processes.
Authorities believe that organised tax evasion costs the government Rs1.259 billion, strongly suggesting that tax evasion is a serious economic threat.
The network was discovered by intelligence-led operations, cross-checking of data at PRAL and WeBOC, document verification and physical stock reconciliation, which found that there was a huge mismatch between the declared data and actual bonded stock.
According to sources, an influential political figure is connected to the scandal, as well. No one has been officially named as such however investigations are still underway.
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