Moosa Bin Shamsher’s car seized

Customs intelligence of the National Board of Revenue on Tuesday seizes a luxury car from controversial business tycoon Moosa Bin Shamsher for alleged duty evasion. — New Age photo

Customs intelligence of the National Board of Revenue on Tuesday seized a luxury car of controversial business tycoon Moosa Bin Shamsher on allegation of evading import duty.
A Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate team sized the car —Range Rover, 3000cc — from a house at Dhanmondi at about 3:30pm after conducting a daylong drive at his Gulshan house and Dhanmondi areas.
The car was imported and released through and from Chittagong Port in 2011 submitting false import documents, customs intelligence
officials said.
Farukuzzaman of Pabna got the registration of the car from Bhola regional office of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority submitting fake import documents but the car was being used by Moosa, they said.
They said that they had evidence that Moosa used the car at his Gulshan house and collected video footage from the CCTV of the house as evidence.
The team issued a notice at 8:00am on Tuesday asking Moosa to transfer the car to the customs intelligence.
Earlier in the morning, a grandson of Moosa went to Sunbeam School at Dhanmondi in the car but came back in another car as the suspected car was kept in hiding at a house of a relative of Moosa, they said.
The team seized the car from the house Lake Bridge Apartment at house 51A and Road 6A at about 3.30pm.
In addition to duty evasion, the officials also suspected money laundering through the import of the car as the importer paid Tk 17 lakh in customs duty at the rate of 130 per cent though the applicable duty rate was 550 per cent for the car.
Customs intelligence director general Moinul Khan told New Age that they found primary evidence of duty evasion in the import of the vehicle.
They will now investigate whether there was any money laundering through the duty evasion, he said.
‘We will summon Moosa Bin Shamsher for the sake of further investigation into the matter,’ he said.
Case will be filed under the Customs Act and the Money Laundering Prevention Act if the allegation is finally proved, he said.
The Anti-Corruption Commission is also conducting inquiry into money laundering allegations against Moosa, the chairman and chief executive officer of manpower export company DATCO Group.

Source: New Age