The anti-smuggling efforts have been stepped up by Pakistan Customs, who have also begun a crackdown on smuggled products, including POL, money, and other goods, as well as on critical supplies.
Through untraveled routes crossing the bordering regions of Afghanistan and Iran, essential commodities like sugar and urea are smuggled out of Pakistan while items like POL are smuggled in, including POL. Following that, these illegal products are delivered to the major urban centers by trucks and, in some cases, smaller passenger cars.
Pakistan Customs has stepped up counter-smuggling efforts and launched a crackdown on smuggled items after becoming aware of this issue.
Large quantities of supplies worth over Rs. 2.25 billion were been confiscated by Pakistan Customs over the past two weeks in various operations across the nation, including the regions of Quetta, D.I. Khan, Multan, Karachi, Sargodha, and Lahore. The main vital goods that were seized were tires, black tea, betel nuts, automobiles, iron, steel, sugar, urea, POL, and local money.
On September 2, smugglers in a convoy of 15 trucks carrying 1,637 tons of sugar worth roughly Rs 1 billion were caught in the region of Balochistan by Customs Enforcement-Quetta. Then, on September 3, D.I. Khan, working with local police, made a significant arrest of illegal items and cars worth Rs. 519 million, as well as 218,000 liters of smuggled POL/diesel, projected to be worth around Rs. 137.6 million. Customs Enforcement-Karachi stopped the flow of POL being trafficked last week by capturing 115,000 liters of diesel and 30,000 liters of petrol in Iranian history.
