Customs seize smuggled brown sugar worth Rs.241Mn

 Pic by Kushan Sangeeth Pathiraja

• Brown sugar can be imported under a special permission of Import and Export Controller General
• Importer declared the consignment as white sugar
• Consignment arrived in 45 containers

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana   

A smuggled brown sugar consignment which had been  smuggled into the country concealed in bulk and declared as white sugar  worth of Rs.241 million was detected by Sri Lanka Customs and displayed  to the media yesterday.   

Customs Post Clearance Audit Division officials on  suspicion searched a consignment of 1,200 metric tons of white sugar  which had been imported from India by a local sugar importer, Customs  Spokesman Director Sudaththa Silva said.   

The consignment in 45 containers (20 feet) had arrived in  the Colombo Port on Tuesday and the Customs sleuths found that 50% of  the bulk had contained the import restricted brown sugar.   

Director of Customs Compliance and Facilitation Directorate  Seevali Arukgoda told the Daily Mirror that the import of brown sugar has  to be done with the special permission of the Import and Export Controller  General, as the brown sugar is produced in Sri Lanka abundantly.   

The suspected importer, whose company had been involved in  importing sugar for the past 20 years, had declared the consignment as  white sugar, and they possess a licence only to import white sugar, he  said.  Customs Post Clearance Audit Division Superintendents K.  Shanmugadasan and Sujeewa Pathinisekara with the team are conducting  inquiries.  The seized consignment of sugar was displayed to the media  yesterday when State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya came to  examine the contraband at a private warehouse on Biyagama Road in  Peliyagoda.