Karachi: An official report submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday said smugglers were inflicting financial losses to the country to the tune of $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion) annually besides duty evasions worth billions of rupees.
The Supreme Court in past hearings of Karachi Law and Order case, had set up a one-man commission, comprising Ramzan Bhatti, a former Pakistan Customs official, to probe as to how weapons and other contraband are smuggled into Karachi.
The Customs veteran in his report said that every year goods worth Rs530 billion (Dh18.2 billion) were smuggled every year into Pakistan. Besides that the government suffered losses of Rs200 billion under the head of duties and taxes every year.
The report also revealed that 60 per cent of the goods imported for neighbouring Afghanistan were smuggled back into Pakistan. Pakistan facilitates the land-locked Afghanistan imports of goods under Afghan Transit Treaty (ATT).
There are rings of smugglers who also traffic Iranian goods on a big level and petroleum products, plastic, and carpets are smuggled into Pakistan from Iran.
Besides, cattle and Saaris are smuggled from eastern neighbour India whereas liquor is brought into Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates through seas.
The court would review the report in the next hearing of the case. The commission had been set up by the court after a senior security official told it that some 19,000 shipping containers carrying Nato forces weapons had gone missed from the Karachi Port.
The apex court hearing over the worsening law and order situation in Karachi has recently led to a full blown operation against the outlaws, extortionists and contract killers who were gunning down over 200 people every month before September.
With the launch of the operation a significant fall in murders has been seen.
