The Bribery Commission informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate Prasanna Alwis yesterday (29) that when the Government banned the importation of vehicles, import companies and the Motor Transport Department jointly registered vehicles falsely, depriving the Government of Rs. 1 billion in tax revenue. The Bribery Commission mentioned this at the time of a case filed by the Commission being taken up for hearing, that the offence of corruption was committed by falsely entering the Mini Cooper type car bearing number KE3845 which was not cleared by Customs into the computer system of the Motor Transport Commissioner’s Department.
The Bribery Commission, which stated that about 5,000 vehicles have been falsely registered, said that 200 vehicles have been identified so far.
The Bribery Commission also stated that it has received information that the officials of the Motor Transport Department are receiving an amount of Rs. 2 million to register one vehicle and stated that intelligence agencies have received information that this racket has been going on for some time.
The Commission mentioned that six suspects have been identified so far in connection with this fraud which is depriving the Government of tax revenue and said that they will be brought before the court by them.
The officials of the Bribery Commission informed the court that the Mini Cooper vehicle had been brought to Sri Lanka using fake documents in 2007 and that it had been registered in a three-wheeler book in 2015, and the Government suffered a tax fraud of Rs. 2.5 million and that this had been done by an auto parts import company.
The Bribery Commission requested the court to place this vehicle in Customs custody for further investigation regarding the incident. Accordingly, the court issued orders to hand over the relevant Mini Cooper vehicle to Sri Lanka Customs for further investigation.
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