Interim charge sheet says syndicate behind import of stolen Bentley

The investigation officer (IO) has filed an interim charge sheet against four suspects in a case pertaining to the alleged smuggling of a high-end vehicle, Bentley Mulsanne, said to be stolen from the United Kingdom.

The Pakistan Customs had recovered the vehicle from a house in Karachi’s Defence area on September 4. Subsequently, Customs officials registered an FIR and arrested two suspects — Jameel Shafi, who claimed to be the bona fide owner of the vehicle, and Naveed Bilwani.

The IO, Muddasir Ali, filed the charge sheet before the Special Court Customs, Taxation and Anti-Smuggling, charging the alleged main suspect Navaid Yameen, Muhammad Sohail and the held suspects with smuggling the vehicle, evading taxes and duties worth approximately Rs300 million, and violating diplomatic impunity and other Customs laws.

Citing the investigation, the IO concluded that the expensive vehicle was imported for the sole purpose of smuggling and evasion of tax and duties using diplomatic exemptions.

During the course of the investigation, the officer said, it transpired that a syndicate was involved in the import of vehicles at zero duty and taxes by abusing diplomatic privileges and exemptions. Shafi had purchased the vehicle in question for Rs37.5 million, which was a fraction of the vehicle’s actual value, the IO added.

He wondered whether it was not the responsibility of the purchaser to have all the documents of the vehicle having diplomatic privileges verified from the foreign affairs ministry and other departments.

He maintained that Shafi did not do so intentionally and intended to cover the crime with a sale agreement which had no value in the eyes of the law, adding that a mere scrutiny of the sale agreement dated September 21, 2020, revealed that the entire deal was based on mala fide intentions as the buyer, Shafi, paid a hefy amount without any no-objection certificate from the Customs department, the foreign ministry and embassy of Bulgaria.

He purchased the vehicle from Yameen through a broker, Bilwani, who assured him of getting the vehicle cleared from all the departments concerned within a period of two years, the IO said.

The probe revealed that Yameen along with others had been involved in various offences, including abuse of diplomatic exemptions for clearance of consignments. Explaining their modus operandi, the charge sheet said that expensive vehicles were imported in the name of diplomats who enjoyed tax and duty exemptions, and after their clearance from the Customs authorities, they were sold in the open market without payment of tax or duty, causing a loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.

The IO said that a goods declaration (GD) of a consignment came on record, which showed that the embassy imported the Grey Bentley Mulssane V8 Automatic to Pakistan through a France-based firm, Sea Horse Trading, and when Yameen’s NTN was checked, a company with a similar name was also registered in his name in Pakistan. It was yet to be confirmed that both firms had any link between them, he added. He said it was being investigated as to how the stolen vehicle was exported to Pakistan through Belgium’s Antwerpen seaport without it being noticed at the time of export from Belgium.

The Bentley Mulsanne was registered by the Sindh excise and taxation department in the name of then Ambassador of Bulgaria Aleksancer Borisov Parashkevov, the IO pointed out, adding that on being approached, the department said the vehicle was already registered with the foreign affairs ministry on January 8, 2020, and it issued only a cover number plate ‘BRS-279’. The IO said the role of excise officials was also being investigated for registering the vehicle without the verification of its documents.