E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, SEP 04 -

The Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) has taken five Indian traders under its control on suspicion of misappropriating foreign exchange worth Rs 460 million on the pretext of importing goods from India.

Five Indian nationals, including Kul Bhusan Misra, were found to have sent Indian currency equivalent to Rs 460 million to India by submitting fake customs clearance documents, according to the DRI.

The DRI had arrested them four days ago in Birgunj with the help of Parsa Police and brought them to Kathmandu before sending them to judicial custody on Thursday. DRI has demanded a bail equivalent to the embezzled amount. 

“They received IC from NIC bank through draft by submitting fake customs clearance documents although they didn’t import legally,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of DRI. “Action will be initiated against them as per the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.”

DRI officials said nine fake customs clearance documents worth IRs 10 million were recovered from them, of which IRs 2.3 million connected to two documents was already siphoned off to India, they said. “But, they were yet to get payment of the remaining seven documents when we arrested them,” said Shrestha. All five firms, including Maxwell Computer, through which the accused carried out transactions, have been registered in Birgunj. However, DRI has not found their offices so far.

DRI also found that two of their firms had siphoned off IC equivalent to Rs 420 million in two installments (Rs 260 million and Rs 160 million) through NIC Bank over the last six months.

Admitting that the accused carried out IC transactions through them, NIC Bank denied that the transactions happened in such a volume. “We issued draft worth Rs 40 million for one firm and Rs 80 million for the other over the last six months,” said a senior NIC official. “We did so because signatures in customs clearance documents and foreign exchange transaction related documents resembled with original ones.”

NIC’s Birgunj branch had issued the demand drafts. “The bank also followed the ‘know your customer policy’ strictly in these cases,” said the official.

However, the Birgunj Customs Office confirmed that the customs clearance documents were counterfeit. Labanya Kumar Dhakal, chief of Birgunj Customs, said those documents do not even resemble with original. “They bore numbers above 900,000, but our documents have just reached near 200,000,” said Dhakal.

Of the five firms, DRI has frozen bank accounts of two, in whose names the drafts were issued. The department suspects that the IC was sent to India for the payment for under-invoiced goods. “The IC could also have been used to smuggle goods as well as selling for high commission,” said Shrestha.

“With the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) tightening IC withdrawals from Indian ATMs using debit cards issued by Nepali banks and financial institutions (BFIs), they might have used this medium to get IC,” said Dhakal.

The central bank in March last year had lowered the withdrawal limit to IRs 10,000 per day and IRs 100,000 per month. Earlier, card holders could withdraw up to IRs 25,000 per day and IRs 200,000 per month.

Posted on: 2011-09-04 09:37

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