The BGMEA has formed an audit team to track down two garment factories in the city, which were reportedly Involved in a massive duty evasion.

Sources said a special customs squad of National Board of Revenue detected that two garment factories evaded duty worth Tk 26.31 crore in 1997. The NBR team failed to locate the factories as they shifted the offices.

Shakhawat Hossain, managing director of Rlshal Garments. is heading the BGMEA audit team. A member of the team told the Daily Star last week they were checking all documents provided by those factories.

According to the NBR investigation report. Zeal Fashion Limited at 184/1 North Shaja-hanpur and Quality Fashion on plot 11. Section-10. Boundary Road -8. Senpara Parbata in Mirpur evaded duty equivalent to Tk 14.08 crore and Tk 12.23 crore respectively, through forging documents.

However, failing to locate the two factories the NBR sought BGMEA help to find them out. sources said.

The report said the evaded duty could be realised by serving a demand notice on the owners of the garment factories.

The factories imported cloths with forged bonded warehouse documents, back to back letters of credit and utilisation declaration certificates issued by BGMEA. and sold the same in the open market to evade duty.

The report said the two factories imported more than 89.67 lakh yards of fabric— Zeal Fashion 50.09255 yards and Quality Fashion 39,58713 yards.

The papers submitted by the two factories showed them as clients of Agrani Bank, a claim the bank denied.

However, the passbook re-vealed that Zeal Fashion got the bonded warehouse license from Dhaka Customs HouSe and collected passbook from Chittagong Customs House on April 5. 1997. One Mohammad SiraJ Ud Dowla collected the passbook on behalf of Kings Line of Chittagong, a clearing and forwarding agent.

However, principal branch of Agrani Bank at Motljheel confirmed that Zeal Fashion forged documents of a number of garment factories while having the goods released with the help of clearing and forwarding agents.

It used the name of Azim and Sons. S. H. Sweaters, Sandiana Sweaters. People's Products. Elegant Garments. Wintech Garments and Savar Garments. They collected the copy of back to back letters of credit those factories opened and replaced the names and addresses.

The other factory. Quality Fashion, followed Zeal Fashion's suit while forging documents. It used copies of the back to back letters of credit of Floret Private Ltd. Shisheer Apparels. Apparel Fare. A. J I Industries Ltd. and Bhuiyan Garments.

When this correspondent phoned the number or Quality Fashion, it was said that the number Is of a shop that had been doing business for the last three years. However, there had been no answer on the phone of Zeal Fashion.