The Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate has seized four luxury cars at Mongla Port after the importer declared them as old vehicle parts. The vehicles were found on Thursday after customs matched the shipment against its paperwork and uncovered a consignment that had been broken into pieces and described as ordinary spare parts.
The seizure matters because the four vehicles were not low-value parts at all. Customs says the consignment contained a Range Rover Vogue, BMW 65i, Lexus LX570 and Toyota Crown Athlete, with a combined market value estimated at around Tk 4.5 crore to Tk 6.7 crore. The National Board of Revenue disclosed the case in a press release on Thursday, saying the importer evaded customs duties by treating the shipment as used parts.
Officials said the hidden vehicles were traced through a 100 per cent physical inspection carried out on 19 July after the Khulna regional office of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate received intelligence in July and suspended the consignment. The inspection relied on technical help from experts from Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, along with artificial intelligence, to examine stickers, labels, markings and numbers attached to or engraved on the goods.
The method was simple on paper and harder to spot in practice. The importer, Crown Automobile Services, based in Gandaria in the capital, declared headlights, used doors, suspension shock absorbers, tail lights, air cleaner boxes, rubber channels and steering wheels. Customs found that the four luxury vehicles had been divided into several parts as completely knocked down units and passed off as old spare parts, a gap that explains how the shipment moved through initial scrutiny before the full inspection exposed it.
Each vehicle carried its own value signal. The Range Rover Vogue was identified as a 2017 model worth about Tk 1.6 crore to Tk 1.85 crore in Bangladesh, the Lexus LX570 was a 2016 model valued at Tk 2 crore to Tk 3.5 crore, the BMW 65i was a 2010 model worth Tk 60 lakh to Tk 90 lakh, and the Toyota Crown Athlete, manufactured in Japan, was valued at roughly Tk 3 million to Tk 4 million. The paperwork described a pile of used parts; the inspection found four full luxury cars.
An NBR official said the dutiable value of the vehicles will be determined first, and customs duties will then be imposed accordingly before legal action is taken against the importer. That next step is the real consequence of the seizure: once customs places the vehicles in their correct value bracket, the case moves from misdeclaration to duty recovery and prosecution, and the figure at stake will be far higher than the shipment’s false label suggested.
