Interestingly, Pant was serving as the commander of the revenue squad deputed at the Tatopani customs to check smuggling and revenue leakage. [break]
He was taken under control at 26 Kilo in Dhulikhel, Kavre at 7 pm after a joint team of DRI and Crime Investigation Bureau (CIB) found him in possession of 761 illegal mobile sets.
“He (Pant) admitted the sets belonged to him, but failed to produce customs declaration and other documents to prove those were legally imported,” said a source at DRI.
Rajendra Prasad Sharma, deputy director general of DRI also confirmed the wrongdoing by the former chief of the revenue squad.
“Based on an informant´s tip off, we had inspected two vehicles -- Na 2 Cha 2660 and Ba 5 Cha 3369 -- reserved by an APF team that was returning to Kathmandu after they were recalled from the customs,” he told Republica.
While Tata Sumo (Na 2 Cha 2660) with Pant and another senior APF official was loaded with the mobile sets and few blankets, the other vehicle Mahindra (Ba 5 Cha 3369) with around 10 APF personnel contained blankets.
“Some of those (blankets) are used ones, while others are new. This does not seem much serious. But ferrying of 761 mobile sets without proper documents clearly indicates smuggling,” said Sharma.
The mobile sets are from reputed brands like iphone, Nokia, Samsung and LG and officials said DRI was yet to calculate the worth of the goods seized and amount of revenue loss.
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