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In a key arrest in the Mundra duty evasion case, Pankaj Thakkar, a friend of Mumbai-based businessman Anil Pandit, was held by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Kutch (East) police on Friday. With this, the number of arrests in the case has gone up to nine.
As per police, Thakkar, who is a resident of Gandhidham town of Kutch district, is the mastermind of the duty evasion racket. Thakkar is a friend of Pandit, the director of 4Fox Logistic Pvt Lit (4FLPL). He was nabbed along the Gujarat-Rajasthan border.
The SIT formally arrested 50-year-old Thakkar after bringing him to Kutch on Friday. Investigators said that with the help of Manishkumar Jain, a person living in Dubai, and other accused, Thakkar hatched a conspiracy to evade Customs duty on imported areca nuts by declaring cargo imported in containers as salt.
According to police, after containers packed with areca nuts would land at Mundra port in Kutch, instead of taking them directly to Kandla Social Economic Zone (KASEZ) in Gandhidham, the accused used to take them to godowns of 4FLPL and others in Mundra, unload areca nuts there, pack salt in containers and seal containers with duplicate seals before sending containers to KASEZ.
“Through courier, Jain had sent Thakkar duplicate seals bearing the same seal numbers as the ones used for sealing containers containing areca nuts. The accused use those seals to seal containers by replacing the cargo in Mundra godowns,” the SIT said in a release.
As per an FIR registered at Mundra police station of Kutch (west) police on October 26 this year, the accused also forged documents to show imported areca nut consignments as ones purchased from within India and would then be sold in the domestic market.
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