Customs intelligence team raids BOL News head office in Karachi

Search warrant issued following suspicions of non-custom paid media equipment being present in the building

KARACHI:

The Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Karachi carried out a raid on Monday at the head office of BOL News in compliance with court orders.

During the operation, the directorate team, accompanied by BOL News representatives, compiled a list of inventory items, including DSNGs, studio equipment, cameras, camera control units, monitors, and other imported equipment in the building.

The raid was conducted after a search warrant was issued by a district and sessions judge.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the court issued the order based on suspicions of non-custom paid media equipment being present at the BOL News office.

Upon executing the search warrant, customs officials were instructed to conduct a thorough search of all rooms and areas within the building and prepare a list of any non-custom paid equipment discovered during the search.

Read more: FIA gets remand of Axact CEO

They were also ordered to detain any such equipment in accordance with the law. During the search, the officials also took videos and pictures of the equipment as per the court order.

According to sources, the equipment found to be in violation of the law will be confiscated, and its market value and duty will be assessed by the authorities.

Last week, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested Axact and BOL TV CEO Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh from the Islamabad airport on charges of bribing a former sessions judge for his acquittal in the fake degrees case.

Shaikh was arrested shortly after he landed in Islamabad on a flight from Karachi.

The BOL TV chief executive is charged with bribing Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Pervez-ul-Qadir Memon to get a favourable verdict in the Axact fake degrees case.

The FIA had previously arrested the Axact CEO in 2015 after investigators found hundreds of thousands of forged degrees and students ID cards from a secret office of the company in Karachi.

Television footage from the 2015 FIA raid on the Axact offices in Karachi showed piles of degree templates from different universities in rooms at the building.

A New York Times report had revealed that Axact was running a worldwide, multimillion-dollar fake diploma empire from the secret office.

A multi-million money laundering case was also registered against Shaikh and the Axact management, but the chief executive was later acquitted by the now-disgraced judge, Pervez-ul-Qadir Memon.