Empty containers and other filled with stones to smuggle 50 million ZDZ of hard currency
Value of the smuggled money in hard currency during the first Six months of 2015 reaches 50 million Euros, as revealed by the report that was sent to the Prime Ministry, about the import of hardware that has no commercial value, and that was abandoned when it reached various ports, as some of the involved in these suspicious transactions benefited from the advantages of ANSEJ and CNAC projects.
Sources at the General Directorate of Customs told Echorouk about a report that was sent to the Prime Minister about the hard currency smuggling, which exceeded the value of 50 million Euros, during the first six months of 2015, while the smuggling of more than 120 million Euros were recorded during 2014, as these amounts were transferred to foreign banks, compared to importing hardware that has no commercial value, and that was abandoned when it reached the national ports in containers which content is unknown, only when it enters the national territory.
Same sources confirmed the continuation of the hard currency bleeding with the beginning of the year, as investigation is conducted in many suspicious import operations, such as those that were carried out by Algerian importers, who were able to transfer what exceed the value of two million Euros for importing equipment without commercial value from the European countries and China, reaching the limit to import empty containers and sometimes containers are filled with stones and sand, such as those that were imported from China and exactly from the streets of Shanghai.
On the other hand, the Central Office of Control that is attached to the General Directorate of Customs, since the beginning of the year until last June, opened an investigation on 800 corruption cases, including 443 cases of hard currency smuggling and money-laundry operations, in which economic institutions, local and foreign importers are implicated, while the total number of files that have been referred to justice reached 1234 files.
As for the nature of the recorded irregularities the source said that most of them are false and fraudulent statements, for the value of imported goods, their classification and origin, with other goods that are costumed with forged goods, in addition to increasing the transfer of tax benefits that are granted to economic dealers from the original destination in the framework of the projects, as these irregularities were recorded, according to the same source, even in import companies in the framework of the Arab region for free trade and partnership with the European Union, as well as the irregularities concerning the customs regulations that are exempted from taxes and customs’ rights.