The chief executive officer of a chain of duty free shops at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport has been arrested on the charge of illegal sale of imported liquor resulting in evasion of over Rs 6 crores customs duty, an official said here today.
The liquor imported without duty was meant to be sold only to international passengers within eligible quantities, Customs Commissioner Sumit Kumar in a press release.
After investigations, CEO ofPlus Max Duty Free Shop Pvt Ltd Sundar Vasan was arrested and produced before the economic offences court at Ernakulam here and remanded to judicial custody, the release said.
Investigation revealed that the accused had illegally sold/diverted foreign liquor from the duty free shop and to cover up it he had manipulated the sale details and made submitted fabricated returns to the customs department.
Besides, the original sale invoice copies had been destroyed and fresh invoices were generated in the name of passengers who were not the actual customers, it said.
Further, there were complaints of misuse of passports by the flight passengers against the company on the ground that their passport details were used without their knowledge for showing the illegal sales, the release said.
The CEO had even used the passport details of babies as well as minors and passengers whose religion strictly prohibits the use of liquor, it said.
The investigation further revealed that there were huge differences in the amount of foreign currency received and deposited by the company.
Evidences of violations which attract action under prevention of money laundering Act, foreign exchange management Act etc have been gathered, it said.
The managing director of the company was yet to respond to the summons issued, the release said adding the staff working in the duty free shop admitted to the illegal sales.
By the illegal activities, the company appeared to have evaded customs duty of over Rs 6 crore, which is a non-bailable offence attracting prosecution under customs Act, 1962, the release said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)