Chittagong Port Authority and Customs officials, in exchange for money, provided illegal benefits to C&F Agents to unload container by hacking the National Board of Revenue (NBR) server. Because of the concerned 32 officials' direct involvement in different levels, those agents have successfully unloaded the container. In this case, the government has been deprived of revenue while on the other hand, national security has been threatened.
This information was revealed in a government intelligence investigation report. The report was also sent to Prime Minister’s Office. In the intelligence report, it was stated that some corrupt officials of the customs are cooperating with the unscrupulous importers and C&F agents to release the container from the port without properly charging the import duty. Providing false information, these importers and C&F agents import illegal and risky goods and later unload containers without conducting appropriate physical test. Importing such goods are threating national security of the country.
Citing 22 shipments container numbers, declared goods, bill of entry, importers and C&F agents in the report it was stated that, as there are illegal goods with high tariffs and not allowed under the import policy, these should not be unloaded at the port. However, corrupt officials of ports and customs cooperated to release the containers in exchange of illegal money.
Name of the corrupt officials of the NBR who helped the unscrupulous importers and C&F agents are system analyst Golam Sarwar, the then Ctg Customs AIR department deputy commissioner Shahinur Rahman Tomal, revenue officer Sultan Ahmed, revenue officer Shahidul Islam, Nur-e-Alam, Habibul Islam, Monowar Hossain Chowdhury, Saiful Islam, Meherab Ali, SM Mosaraf Hossain, assistant revenue officer AHM Nazrul Islam, Shahriar Hossain, Mohammad Nur-e- Alam, Saifunnahar Joni, Mirza Sayed Hasan Farman.
The direct allegation against Shahinur Rahman Tomal and Sultan Ahmed made in the report that they helped importers and C&F agents in exchange for illegal money. apart from these 22 shipments they are also involved with other illegal unload from the port. As per the report, port officials are Shahbuddin, Sanawar Mia, Mofizur Rahman Helal, Sheikh Baccu Mia, Md Elias, Hamidur Rahman, Nazim Uddin, KabirAhmmed, ShaymolKrisnaVomik, SalauddinPayal, Morshedul Islam, Omar Faruk, Arpan KantiDebnath, Mainuddin, Anik, Abdul Gani, Mostafizur Rahman.
About the misuse of online system the report revealed that, despite transferring of an assistant officer, his user ID and password used 3681 times to log into the web. On the other hand, despite getting retirement another revenue official ID used 116 times from 21 November 2017 to 27 September 2018 to log into the web. Despite the customs intelligence objection to some of the imported containers, these were unloaded using these two ID.
To find out the corrupted officials a team was formed with four officials led by the present Chattogram Customs Commissioner MdFakhrulAlam. The other members are additional director of custom intelligence Abdul Hakim, NBR's CIC additional director general Khaled Md Abu Hosen, while another three members committee was formed led by ctg customs commissioner HM Shariful Hasan. While connected no one made any comments about the progress of the investigation.
