Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad Zonal Unit (AZU) of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Tuesday announced that it has uncovered customs duty evasion exceeding ₹25 crore, involving the undervaluation of imported luxury cars. A key accused in the case was arrested in Hyderabad and remanded to judicial custody by the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

As per the Ministry of Finance, “Specific intelligence developed by DRI indicated that High-end Luxury Cars were being imported by resorting to undervaluation to the extent of 50% by mis-declaring the import value at the Indian ports of Import to evade the applicable Customs Duties. These Luxury Cars would first be transported to Dubai/Sri Lanka from USA/Japan, for the purpose of conversion from left to right hand drive (RHD) and other modification before being imported into India by mis-declaring the import value by using fabricated documents.”

The probe revealed that over 30 luxury vehicles, including the Hummer EV, Cadillac Escalade, Rolls-Royce, Lexus, Toyota Land Cruiser, and Lincoln Navigator, were imported using this method. Importers involved in the scheme are located in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Delhi, with total duty evasion estimated at over ₹25 crore.

DRI has arrested one of the biggest importers involved in this commercial fraud, based in Hyderabad, who has imported eight such high-end luxury cars involving customs duty evasion of more than ₹7 crore. The Hon’ble CJM Court, Ahmedabad, has sent him to judicial custody.

Other importers and actual users of the imported cars, on whose behalf these cars were imported, are under the scanner of DRI. DeshGujarat