It’s an onion, it’s a pouch… it’s heroin: Would you like some heroin with those onion rings?

Custom officials are conducting an investigation to trace the people who handed over the consignment.

KARACHI:

Closer scrutiny of a shipment of onions on Friday, which was destined for Port Klan in Malaysia, ended up being pouches of heroin disguised as vegetables.

The seizure by customs officers at the East Wharf field of the Model Customs Collectorate of Exports amounted to 125 kilogrammes of brown heroin, worth a little over a billion rupees in street value, according to the Collector Customs Export, Muhammad Ibrahim Vighio.

He was speaking to the press at the Old Customs House after the heroin was found in a 40 foot-long refrigerated container.

“We can’t check all the containers because it causes delay in shipments, so we only check the ones that look suspicious,” said Vighio, who had earlier received reports of fruit and vegetable containers being used for drugs. “This was the first container by the company, Yasoob Agencies, and we became suspicious since neither of the clearing agents had dealt with export before.”

Suspicious factors 

According to customs officials, this is one of the biggest heroin seizures in the country’s history and was packed in the Janjal Goth Warehouse near New Sabzi Mandi off the Super Highway. The clearing agents, Khalil Muqtadir and Sajjad, were arrested and admitted to having no previous experience with export.

The container was handed over to the clearing agents by two men, namely Azhar and Jaffar, who have not been apprehended as yet and could not be reached through their cell phones since the investigation began.

The container was filled with 5,400 bags weighing five kilogrammes each and equaling 28 metric tons. It was brought to the Pakistan International Container Terminal for export. The heroin was packaged into 835 onion-sized pouches, weighing 145-155 grams each, covered with purple balloons to resemble the colour of onions in a vegetable sack.

Outside of the sacks, the concealed narcotics looked conspicuous but when inside the fishnet bags, in which vegetables are usually transported, they could successfully pass off as onions.

Taking responsibility 

Any consignment of food that goes through the Karachi ports has to come with an undertaking from a reputed association, for example the Pakistan Vegetable and Fruit Exporters Association.

The undertaking means that the association or company takes responsibility for that consignment. Ten to 20 per cent of any consignment that does not provide an undertaking is supposed to be checked by customs officers.

“We didn’t receive any undertaking for this shipment,” said Vighio, adding that he only knows of one incident where smuggled goods were found in a shipment with an undertaking.

A customs official, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Express Tribune that the whole system of undertakings is flawed and risky. Most of the system is based on trust with established companies but that leaves room for exploitation from within those companies.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2012.