Customs to wrap up Periceyl DCSL case this month

The Customs Department is gearing to fine the culprits of both Distilleries Corporation of Sri Lanka (DCSL) and Stassens Exports Limited (SEL), by this month, in conjunction with the Customs fraud case, according to Customs officials.

“On September 19th some of our officers had questioned Mr. W. J. Moses, who is an Assistant Manager Imports and Wharf at SEL for more than five hours. They managed to retrieve a lot of information from him, pertaining to DCSL and Periceyl, the bottling arm of DCSL and now we are in the latter part of this case,” a Customs official said.

He said that Royle Janz, Director Periceyl was questioned early this month by the Customs when he put the blame on two employees saying that they have dealt with the import documentation that the Customs found fault with.

He said that Customs officials, nearly one year ago came across documents which showed DCSL was swindling the state for the last 10 years for over Rs.1500 million with under invoicing.

The company was importing Brandy and Vodka spirits under Ethyl Alcohol and paying a lower rate to the Customs, when they were raided by the Customs last July. The company was found to have imported Ethyl spirit such as Gin, Brandy and Vodka under Ethyl Alcohol which is the base spirit for arrack.