Aust, ‘valuations’ a smuggling risk

Press, 2 April 1980, Page 6

Aust, ‘valuations’ a smuggling risk

A Sydney firm that is issuing false receipts to travellers is causing major heddaches to Customs officials at New Zealand airports. Delays of up to two hours at Christchurch Airport were experienced by New Zealanders returning from the Inter-Dominion Championships at the week-end and Customs officials said that the Sydney firm, Customs Disposal, was partly responsible because of the number of passengers who had to be questioned about receipts from the firm. The chief Customs officer at the airport (Mr P. A. Anderton) said that at least 50 per cent of duty offences in the last three or four months had been related to Customs Disposal, which undervalued the price of goods on receipts by about a third. Undervaluing in countries where duty-free goods were sold had been going on for years. Several other Australian companies were known to Customs officers to be doing this, but Customs Disposal had “reallv been getting into the act” in a big way in the last few months, Mr Anderton said.

Some of the other Australian companies whose receipts were suspect were George’s Radio, Opal Promotions Proprietary, Ltd,

Jordal Hobby Proprietary, Ltd, and Custom Cleared. Mr Anderton said he believed Customs Disposal had two outlets in Sydney: a shop in Pitt Street, and an auction room “round the corner somewhere.” The firm’s dockets were also stamped with the name of an Auckland company named as a representative of Customs Disposal in New Zealand. Mr Anderton said that the department had heard that Customs Disposal bought up ends of lines from Australian duty-free shops and held public auctions, sometimes on the side of the street, offering electronic equipment at “ridiculous prices.”' When a crowd gathered, people were invited inside at $1 or $2 a head and the auction began again, he said, prices gradually building up from the ridiculous to the not so ridiculous.

“But that does not concern us,” said Mr Anderton. “What does concern us is the high number of false receipts they give to people who present them to us. If people present us with these receipts, they are trying to avoid. payment of duty — in simple terms, smuggling.” A video recorder bought for $7OO from Customs Disposal showed $4OO on the receipt. Mr Anderton did not think that what the

firm was doing was illegal, but if the traveller used it, he was committing an offence. “It is up to the passenger to decide what to do' with the false docket,” he said. Mr Anderton admitted that, with the equipment offered so cheaply by Customs Disposal, it was difficult to tell whether a traveller was showing an undervalued receipt. He said Customs officers relied on “a bit of instinct, a bit of questioning.” “If a person can satisfy us that he took part in an auction and paid a certain price for the goods, that is okay,” he said. “It is a matter of discussing it with him and establishing the facts.”

The Collector of Customs in Christchurch (Mr G. H. Thomson) said yesterday that travellers were not automatically prosecuted if they presented a Customs Disposal receipt to airport officers. They were given the chance, during questioning, to admit that the receipts were undervalued, he said, but if they continued to deny this, they were prosecuted. He said that two months ago, the Customs Department head office had written to Customs Disposal about the latter’s -receipts, but to no apparent effect. “We have no jurisdiction over there,” Mr Thomson said.