Customs intelligence launched a hunt for seizing 16 duty-free cars imported by former employees of the World Bank (WB) under a facility enjoyed by privileged persons, including diplomats.
Officials said the customs intelligence and investigation directorate (CIID) Wednesday sent in a request to the WB Dhaka office for providing detailed information and documents, including present status of those 16 cars, for a scrutiny of alleged duty evasion and non-compliance with customs law.
In its letter addressed to the WB country director, the CIID intelligence team has sought information of those cars within a week's time.
Through an investigation the customs authority found those cars registered with the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and imported by privileged persons of the WB under a provision of customs law.
Privileged persons working with international organisations or with the development partners can obtain passbooks from customs authority to import their products and goods free of duty.
Customs officials have found "abuse" of the facility as they suspect a number of privileged persons sold out their duty-free imported cars to third parties in violation of the customs law.
CIID in the letter to the country director of the WB said, "The World Bank mission does have the legal responsibility to settle the passbooks and also durable goods, including the vehicles, before the departure of their employees on completion of assignments."
The customs officials said the passbooks had not been surrendered and the vehicles, consequently, remained untraced.
They said the customs intelligence team would seize the 16 vehicles whenever located in the ongoing search operation.
"Such an act of noncompliance is punishable offence under the customs act 1969 and the money-laundering prevention act 2012," the CIID wrote in the letter to the WB country chief.
Responding to a query from the FE, Qimiao Fan, the WB country director for Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, said: 'The World Bank Dhaka office has returned 35 passbooks not submitted earlier when the respective expatriate staff left the Dhaka office, which also include nine passbooks from the names mentioned in the letter sent today to the World Bank from the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate.
"We are checking and locating the status of the remaining outstanding passbooks. The World Bank has asked National Board of Revenue (NBR) for a 6-month time period for renewal and surrender of the rest of the passbooks, and will work closely with the NBR to resolve any discrepancies."
CIID director-general Moinul Khan said it was noticed that some of the privileged persons in the international organisations were getting involved in duty-evasion.
"Already we have seized some of the cars and legal process against the persons involved in the corruption is underway," the DG said.
The CIID is scrutinising the allegation of duty evasion by some of the privileged persons of the WB, he added.
The customs law says when a privileged person leaves Bangladesh without returning the cars or other durable articles included in his or her customs passbook or without surrendering the customs passbook, the head of organisation concerned to which the privileged person belonged shall be held responsible for disposal of cars or other durable articles and for surrendering the customs passbooks within sixty days from the date of occurrence of the event as mentioned in clause (a) or clause (b) of sub-rule (1), as the case may be, and the national board of revenue may, on satisfactory grounds, extend this time-limit for a further reasonable period.
Names of the privileged persons who imported those 16 cars are Pramita das Gupta (IFC), Sakuntala Akmeemana, Kathaynoel Khuu, Vinaya Sworoop, Ousmane Seckl, Jose Edgardo Lodezcamdos, Mirva Tuulia, Dayid, Grina Igorcyna Nicdrbcrger, Mridula Singh, Tahseen Sayed Khan, Mayumi Isogain, Tania Mana Mytraczcnko, Ceren Ozer, Fabio Pitaluga, Helen Joy Craig.
Customs officials said personal penalty for not refunding the passbooks may start from Tk 50,000 up to criminal proceedings.
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