The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday said it has arrested two then Deputy Commissioners of Customs posted at UB Centre, JNCH, Mumbai (Maharashtra) during the investigation of two separate cases.
A CBI official said that they registered two separate cases against Subhash Chandra and Dinesh Fuldiya, both ex Deputy Commissioners of Customs, and private individuals Sudhir Padekar and Ashish Kamdar.
The FIR was lodged on the allegations of working as a syndicate to use the passports of various persons who had stayed abroad for more than two years and to use those passports to import various items as items belonging to the passport holders.
It had been alleged that both the DCs entered into a conspiracy with others at different times during their posting at UB Centre, and misused the Transfer of Residence provision under the Customs Act.
The accused used these passports of persons, who had stayed abroad for more than two years especially in the Gulf countries to import various items including household things, electronic items and others by firstly undervaluing the goods and concealing some other undeclared items along with the declared items.
“Further, the public servants were allegedly collecting illegal gratification through the private person from different CHAs and the illegal gratification so collected was routed to different accounts & persons known to the officers both through banking channel and hawala route. The said modus operandi was adopted by the accused for allegedly giving out of charge to the consignments brought by the individuals with the help of Customs Officers and illegal gratification was allegedly paid to the public servants through the private person,” said the CBI official.
The official said that searches were conducted at seven places including at Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Patna and Samastipur (Bihar), Khargon District (Madhya Pradesh) at the premises of the accused and their accomplices which led to the recovery of various incriminating documents.
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