DRI cracks down on computer grey market

A duty demand of Rs 5.50 crore has been slapped on the main operative, one Deepak Dialani, for having imported computer peripherals worth Rs 7.62 crore during 1993-96 without paying duty. All the goods thus identified are liable to confiscation under the Customs Act.Dialani was allegedly supplying smuggled computer parts to Zenith Computers and Minicomp, both Indian computer vendors, using the facade of 13 fictitious companies assellers.

More importantly, the investigating agencies have found that Zenith and Minicomp bought the products from Dialani knowing well that they were smuggled. The purchase managers of the two companies even admitted that the top managements of the companies were in the know about the nature of the transactions,’ and thought Dialani’s prices were competitive.Besides Dialani and Zenith and Minicomp, their managing directors, Rakjumar Saraf and K R Seth respectively, the others served notices are — Parag Nahata, a liaison’ man, Joe Felix D’Souza and one Balasubramaniam, alleged carriers of the smuggled goods, and Veena Hiranandani, an employee of Dialani.

Dialani used the invoices/bills of the 13 fake companies to cover his trail, and roped in billing agents who would discount the cheques paid by Zenith and Minicomp in favour of these 13 entities. The names used were Messrs Kapil Trading Co, Jay Ganesh Enterprises, Odeon Marketing, Universal Trading Co, Sunil Sales Corporation, Shree Ganesh Trading Co,Samrat Sales Corporation, Kalpana Enterprises, Infinity Sales Corporation, Welcome Trading Co, Ami Sales, Vishal Enterprises, and Mahavir Sales Corporation.

In fact, one of Dialani’s carriers, Joe Felix d’Souza, also doubled as a front for one of the fake companies. He had opened an account with the Vijaya bank, Vile Parle (West) in the name of Jay Ganesh Enterprises, and the DRI chanced on his identity during investigations from the bank end.He had used the pseudonym Jeff Norman D’Souza to open the account (which too was Dailani’s idea), then faithfully continued to deposit cheques in this account, withdraw the money and hand it over to Dialani on instructions.

D’Souza had two passports and had travelled to Hong Kong and Bangkok from where he brought computer parts besides other items, and was paid Rs 5,000 per trip. Deepak Dialani’s brother, Prakash, who was based in Hong Kong, was the supplier at that end. D’Souza admitted to having walked through the green channel at the Sahar airport on his return,and that Dialani used to collect the goods as well as his passport outside the airport itself.