100 tonnes of rice seized
Customs officials seize the rice meant for export, despite a government ban on export of any rice varieties, from a private container depot in Colonelhat area in Chittagong city yesterday. Photo: STAR
Customs officials here yesterday seized 100 tonnes of rice hoarded at a private container depot, which were meant for export despite a government ban on the export of all varieties of rice. Intelligence Department (export) of Chittagong Customs with the Department of Customs Intelligence and Investigation in Dhaka raided Golden Container, a privately owned inland container depot (ICD), at Kattoli near city gate area around 2:00am. The customs officials at first found two containers containing 40 tonnes of rice -- miniket and chini gura, said Abul Hashem, assistant revenue officer of the Intelligence Department (export) of Chittagong Customs. The Intelligence Department continued the search and discovered three more containers having 60 tonnes of chini gura rice inside the same depot. The market price of the seized rice would stand at Tk 1 crore, said customs officials. Hashem suspected the rice was supposed to be exported to Italy. He said they found name tags of an Italian company "Asia Food Soc Coop arl" on the bags as the buyer of the seized rice while "Via-Porta Maggieore, 3800185, Roma Italy" was found written under the name. One AR World is the exporter of the consignment, he added. Sources said the on-duty officer identified as Rashed Ahmed of the depot fled the spot sensing presence of the customs officials. Nurul Akter, assistant general manager of the depot, said the rice was hoarded for last two days by submitting fake information saying the consignment as of scrap iron. A customs official said the rice would be confiscated and the exporter would be fined. In 2008, the then caretaker government imposed a ban on the export of all types of rice.
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