Cigarettes Worth Rs250 Million Missing from FBR Warehouses, FIA Registers Case

ISLAMABAD: The FIA Anti-Corruption Circle has registered a case over the alleged disappearance of cigarettes worth Rs250 million from Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) warehouses.

Five FBR officials and three owners or employees of a private company have been nominated as accused in the FIR, which was registered on the complaint of FIA Assistant Director Muhammad Safeer Ahmed.

The accused include Inspectors Kamran and Naveed, a driver, a security guard and a naib qasid. Two directors and a manager of a private company have also been nominated in the case. Raids are reportedly being conducted to arrest the suspects.

According to the FIR, 1,262 cartons of cigarettes were seized in Swabi in February 2024 and subsequently stored at an FBR warehouse in Mardan. Inspectors Kamran and Naveed later transported 1,202 cartons from Mardan to Swabi.

The FIR states that when the trucks reached the Swabi warehouse, 908 cartons of cigarettes were found missing. It was allegedly claimed after three months that 907 cartons had been recovered.

However, an inspection conducted a year later reportedly found that 2,828 cartons, including the 907 cartons previously claimed to have been recovered, were missing.

According to the FIR, FBR inspectors and other staff were allegedly directly involved in the theft, while the accused, in connivance with one another, caused an estimated loss of Rs250 million to the national exchequer.

The FIR further alleged that logbooks were deliberately not maintained at the warehouses and CCTV cameras were not installed, raising questions over the security and monitoring of the seized cigarettes.