E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, SEP 12 -

The government is planning to form a high-level committee to investigate misappropriation of a huge amount of Indian currency with fake customs documents on the pretext of importing goods from India.

Finance Minister Barsa Man Pun said the government opted for such a committee as initial investigations revealed large scale IC misappropriation and that banks’ names are being dragged into the issue. “It seems there has been misappropriation worth billions of rupees,” Pun said. “A separate task force will be formed to make the investigation prompt and effective.” He said the scandal could be as big as the fake VAT bill scam.

Five Indian traders were arrested with nine fake customs clearance documents worth Rs 10 million on August 29. Police confiscated fake customs documents worth Rs 7.52 million and bank vouchers of NIC bank worth IRs 2.3 million from them.

The DRI suspects the illegal transfers were carried out to pay Indian traders for under-invoiced goods and for selling IC notes in the black market. The central regional branch of the DRI in Pathlaiya is investigating the matter. “Given the seriousness of the issue, there is a need to form a high level team,” a Finance Ministry source said.

As the Birgunj Customs has been giving little time to match the customs documents from banks to find out whether they are real, the investigation has gone slow.

Ministry officials say the regional office is not being able to take the probe to a higher level as it also has to carry out its regular duties. Officials said there is a possibility that an experts’ team under the leadership of a DRI official and with participation of Nepal Rastra Bank, Department of Customs and Inland Revenue Department could be formed. The ministry has received suggestions to in-clude the police in the panel.

Although the central regional office of the DRI had sought details from banks, a number of them are delaying the documents’ submission, according to the DRI. The documents obtained from the banks need to be verified by NRB. “Banks where we suspected huge transactions had taken place reported non-transaction or little transaction,” said Mahendra Baniya, chief of the central regional office. “As such, we are going to seek information on this from the central bank.”

Of late, the DRI has found that Siddhartha Bank also issued demand drafts worth Rs 61.1 million in the name of Shyam Galla Bhandar, one of the five firms involved in the IC misappropriation.

Nepal Bangladesh Bank has issued drafts worth Rs 7.8 million and Nabil Bank has been found to have issued drafts worth Rs 411,000. “Pathalaiya office looked into the documents of six banks on Sunday,” Baniya said.

Earlier, DRI found that drafts had been issued by NIC Bank worth Rs 770 million, Rs 62.9 million by Everest Bank and Rs 16.4 million by Nepal Investment Bank in the name of firms such as Digital World, Maxwell, GS Traders and Jai Mata Di Traders, all involved in the misappropriation. A DRI official said that the depa-rtment has been keeping an eye on promoters of banks that issued the drafts.

Birgunj Customs Chief Lavanya Dhakal said the fake customs documents can be id-entified clearly as the customs has not issued documents having code numbers above 200,000. The confiscated fake documents have code numbers in the series of 900,000.

Posted on: 2011-09-12 09:02

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