A Chennai court on Thursday remanded an additional commissioner of Chennai Customs till February 25, for his alleged involvement in a Rs 2 crore green peas import scam case registered by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
Sources said that the officer, M Sathishkumar, a 2010 batch IRS officer, is the main orchestrator of the scam and was arrested by the agency on Wednesday evening. His residence in the TAISHA colony in Virugambakkam, where many IAS, IPS and other service officers live, was searched on Sunday, sources added.
Sathiskumar was also transferred out of the export commissionerate and is likely to be suspended by Chennai Customs, sources said. He is the fourth Customs officer to be arrested in the case after superintendent Shiv Kashyap, appraising officer Nitish Kumar and examiner Manish.
A Customs House Agent (CHA) and a Delhi-based importer have also been arrested by DRI in this case under Section 135 of the Customs Act for misdeclaration of goods.
DRI’s investigation found that the officers had colluded with the importer to import green peas from Canada via Dubai’s Jebel Ali port by mis-declaring them as yellow legumes.
As per Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) policies, green peas can only be imported at the Kolkata seaport with a minimum import price (MIP) of Rs 200 per kg. Totally five containers containing around 100 tonnes of green peas worth Rs 2 crore were seized by DRI.
