Mumbai, Jan 24 (PTI) At least 30 metric tonnes of insecticides worth Rs 16.8 crore were seized by the Mumbai zonal unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in the last one month, an official said on Tuesday.

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The DRI had intercepted several consignments of insecticides being smuggled into India in connivance with Chinese suppliers in the last one month, he said.

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A syndicate was involved in smuggling insecticides such as Chlorantraniliprole, Abamectin Benzoate, etc, and the agency had managed to intercept consignments weighing 30 MTs with estimated value of around Rs 16.8 crore, the official said.

The test reports have confirmed the goods to be insecticides only, he said.

The import of insecticides legally requires a permit from the Central Insecticides Board, and the law mandates the importer and its suppliers or manufacturers to get registration from the Board, the official said.

A probe has revealed that the smuggling activity has been going on since a long time and the syndicate was operating in complicity with Chinese suppliers, he said.

The Chinese suppliers allegedly misdeclared insecticides as Vinyl Acetate Ethylene Copolymer in their documents to facilitate the smuggling, and the illegal proceeds from sale of smuggled goods was being sent to them through hawala network, the official said.

As per preliminary probe, the syndicate had smuggled more than 300 MTs of insecticides, worth more than Rs 300 crore in the past, he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)