4 October 2016 10:22 pm Views - 8363
The ship had left Colombo harbour few months ago after which the customs officials had decided to recheck the contents of the six containers.
The 40 foot container shipment was declared to the customs as having coconut fibre.
The contents of the containers were confirmed to be refuse tea on being checked by the Customs Clearance Unit.
“The consignment was unfit for human consumption,” Mr. Dharmasena said.
He said that the Customs Department had details of four persons believed to be involved on this racket and one suspect had already been arrested. The suspect were remanded for further questioning, he said.
Each container had 18 tons of refuse tea, he said.
“The refuse tea was mainly packed from Kurunegala, Narammala and the Welamboda area in Kandy.
“The suspects used to export these containers using the Customs Green Channel facility. Only five percent of exports were examined under the Green Channel facility. The smugglers had been using this for their illegal exports,” Dharmasena said.
Meanwhile, addressing the media Customs Superintendent Sudath Silva said around 80 containers had been intercepted with refused tea since 2013 and generally the shipments had been found declared as coconut fibre and food stuff.
The investigation was conducted by the Customs Preventive Unit Superintendent Sudath de Silva, Deputy Customs Director Jayanta Buddhadasa and Ranjith Kumarasinghe, Assistant Superintendents Aruna Amarasinghe, Udara Jayasanka, Praveen Indranama, Ranga Liyanage, Sameera Jayasinghe, Amila Sanjeewa and Nadeeka Herath. (Chaturanga Pradeep).
Pix by Kushan Pathiraja