CBI books 10 Customs officials in corruption case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 15 people, including 10 Customs officers, in an alleged corruption case involving misuse of export benefits and fraudulent disbursement of export duty drawbacks worth over ₹7 lakh to 11 firms. This is the fourth such case initiated by the CBI since Monday.

MUMBAI: As part of its anti-corruption operation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 15 people, including 10 Customs officers who served in 2017 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Custom House, Nhava Sheva, in an alleged corruption case on charges including those related to misuse of export benefits via forged shipping bills for disbursal of export duty drawbacks worth over ₹7 lakh to 11 firms.

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The withdrawals were allegedly based on bogus claims. This is the fourth such case initiated by the CBI since Monday. The CBI registered the case based on the complaint of an agency officer, who conducted a preliminary enquiry into the alleged irregularities.

It was alleged that from August 2017 to September 2017, the ten officials, of the Superintendent of Customs and Preventive Officers entered a conspiracy among themselves and five private accused, who are businessmen, to cheat the government exchequer, CBI sources said.

As a part of the alleged conspiracy, the accused persons and unknown others had prepared, filed and processed 72 bogus shipping bills of 11 private firms with importer-exporter codes without any physical movement of goods, without examination of actual documents/containers and passed the Let Export Orders for these bills, the sources said.

Earlier, the CBI registered three other cases against around three dozen accused, including several Customs officials, concerning allegations of multi-crore fraudulent duty drawback withdrawals and bribery and conducted searches.