The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Tuesday seized 83.352 MT of areca nuts worth Rs 5.71 crore from a consignment declared as “base oil” at Mundra Port. The DRI also seized 14.383 MT of an oily liquid worth Rs 6.17 lakh that was falsely declared as “base oil”, officials said.
The items were caught from a consignment that arrived from the UAE. Of the 738 drums inspected, 658 contained areca nuts in split form, while 80 drums held the oily liquid. The items were seized under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962. In order to evade tariffs and 110 per cent duty imposed on areca nut imports, the importer tried to mis-declare the imports to avoid detection by customs authorities.
According to DRI, the perpetrators not only manipulated cargo descriptions but also provided false information about the non-existent importer’s premises in the Importer Exporter Code (IEC) records. Further investigation is underway.
