A section of unscrupulous officials of the Chittagong Port Authority and the Customs Department, taking bribe, provided undue benefits to C&F agents for unloading containers by hacking the National Board of Revenue (NBR) server. The direct involvement of 32 concerned officials at different levels helped those agents make their way to illegally unload the containers, gaining them make huge money. Such corrupt practice has deprived the government of revenue and posed a threat to the national security too. This information was revealed in a report prepared by an intelligence agency of the government. The report was also sent to the Prime Minister's Office.
In the intelligence report, it was stated that some corrupt officials of the customs cooperated with the unscrupulous importers and C&F agents to release the containers from the port without properly charging the import duties. 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 threatening the national security of the country. Citing 22 shipments container numbers, declared goods, bill of entry, importers and C&F agents in the report it is 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 the port and customs cooperated to release the containers in exchange of money, the report said.
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 allegations against Shahinur Rahman Tomal and Sultan Ahmed were made in the report citing that they helped importers and C&F agents in exchange for money. Apart from these 22 shipments they were also involved in other illegal unloading 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, ShaymolKrisna Vomik, SalauddinPayal, Morshedul Islam, Omar Faruk, Arpan KantiDebnath, Mainuddin, Anik, Abdul Gani, Mostafizur Rahman. About the misuse of online system the report revealed that despite transfer of an assistant officer, his user ID and password were used 3681 times to log on the web. On the other hand, despite his retirement another revenue official’s ID was used 116 times from 21 November 2017 to 27 September 2018 to log on the web. In spite of the customs’ intelligence objection to some of the imported containers, these were unloaded using these two IDs. To find out the corrupted officials, a team was formed with four officials led by the present Chattogram Customs Commissioner Md Fakhrul Alam. The other members are additional director of custom intelligence Abdul Hakim, NBR's CIC additional director general Khaled Md Abu Hosen, while a separate three-member committee was formed led by Chittagong Customs Commissioner HM Shariful Hasan. When contacted no one made any comments about the progress of the investigation.
