Ahmedabad:

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized a ship-load of smuggled high speed diesel worth over Rs 26 crores from Kandla port in Gujarat.

A DRI official today said that the diesel smuggled from UAE in vessel MT Al Heera was imported by mis-declairation as Base Oil SN 50. It was seized on the basis of tip off to the Ahmedabad zonal unit of the DRI.

‘A discreet watch was kept on the vessel and as soon as it berthed at the Kandla oil jetty the DRI officials checked the samples from each of the 10 tanks of the ship. During lab test it was found to be high speed diesel, a restricted item which was permitted to be imported only by state trading enterprise and no private person is allowed to do so. As a policy it is imported only via Indian Oil Corporation. The quantity of the diesel seized was 5521.797 tons which is valued at Rs 26,40,42,565,’ he said.

‘Further it was found that the duty computed by importers on mis-declaired base oil SN 50 was only around Rs 6.46 crores whereas for the High Speed diesel it came to around Rs 11 crores. DRI inquiry in the matter was in progress,’ he said.

DeshGujarat