Another sugar scam under investigation

A sugar scam where brown sugar was imported into the country on the pretext of importing white sugar has been detected, a customs official said.

He said 1,200 Mt tons sugar have been imported into the country claiming the consignment was white sugar; however 600mt of the stock was found to be brown sugar.

 Currently there is a restriction on import of brown sugar inorder to protect the local industry. 

The State Finance Minister Ranjith Siyamabalapitiya visited the Paliyagoda warehouses belong to sugar importers where the customs detected the illegally imported sugar.

 The minister pointed out that the higher customs duty has to be paid for brown sugar as well as restrictions are put in place for importation as ample amounts of locally brown sugar is produced.

“The country is facing a dollar crisis, in such a situation everyone should work according to the law”, he said.

 He said that people also can tip off information of such scams to the intelligence unit of the customs by dialing 0112471471.

Customs Media spokesman Sudatta Silva said Superintendent of Customs from the Post Audit section K. Shanmugadasan had detected that Brown sugar was in short supply and available stocks were selling at high prices..

He said on investigations a consignment of 85 containers imported from India had been detained and 45 had been checked  and of the 1,215 Mt  607.5 Mt was Brown sugar.

The total stocks are estimated to be around Rs 240 million.