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of the major importers of
memory products into the country
have been facing a situation wherein quite a few of their goods are
stolen from the consignments they bring in. This has been going on
for some time and especially more so from April onwards. While there
is no hard evidence to prove who is responsible for the thefts, there
are allegations that the location where the theft takes place is none
other than the customs warehouse in the New Delhi airport. Acting on
information from Kingston, DQ Week decided to talk to those affected.
Some of these are Vishal Video based out Mumbai, Shreepati Computech
based out of New Delhi and HCL which also distributes Kingston
products across the nation. In fact another Mumbai-based importer
called Sunrise Info Solutions very recently was added to the list of
victims however chose not to comment on the issue over the phone when
contacted.
Computech in the month of June had two incidents when goods were
stolen, once in the first week of the month and the latest in the
last week of the month. In the most recent case, around 800 units of
2GB memory cards were stolen amounting to approximately Rs 1, 80,000
in value. Director Ashok Jain explained the supply chain process.
“Kingston is based out Taiwan and so we place our orders at the
Taiwan office. From there a release order is sent to the
manufacturing facility at Shenzen, China. From China the goods are
sent to India via air through a carrier agency. The consignment comes
directly to the New Delhi airport where it is then inspected by the
customs officers and after their approval it is sent to the airport
customs warehouse. From the warehouse our transporter collects the
goods and then finally brings it to our godown in Delhi. Somewhere
along this entire line of goods changing hands, there is some foul
play happening,” said Jain. An employee of HCL spoke regarding the
issue on the condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak
to the media. “We have also faced issues of theft on and off from
shipments that come via New Delhi airport. We typically have
shipments of around twenty to thirty thousand memory cards each and
in every second shipment or so there are around 500 to 1500 cards
that are stolen,” said the HCL representative.
Aggarwal of Vishal Video highlighted what had happened with his
company. “There have been two specific instances in the recent past
where in the first case, 300 units of 4GB SD cards were stolen and in
the second case had around 800 units of 4GB SD cards which were
taken. The total amount of combined loss from both these cases
amounts to well over Rs three lakhs.”
Jain theorized as to where the fault could be. “In my opinion I
would say that the theft is happening from the customs warehouse. I
have concluded this based on the fact that till the shipment reaches
Delhi airport, Kingston is in charge with documented proof of each
move. From the customs warehouse to our godown is taken care of by my
transporter and I have done my background check to see if the trouble
is at my end and he has come clean. Even my own agent is able to go
along with the customs officials up till the warehouse beyond which
there is no entry allowed to unauthorized personnel. The goods lie in
the warehouse for around two to three days awaiting clearance and
this is the stage where I feel stuff gets stolen from our shipments.”
Aggarwal agreed, “This phenomenon is happening with most of the
memory card importers and so the only common link is the customs
channel and since the matter of theft is affecting almost everybody,
I believe the issue lies at the customs warehouse.”
as to why mainly memory cards are stolen and not the pen drives, HCL
employee replied, “Memory cards have a smaller form factor and it's
easier to steal and conceal these goods as compared to pen drives.”
Jain also said, “With pen drives it is a little easier to track
down to which gray channel the stolen goods are going because of the
importers code on the packs. For memory cards it is not that easy.”
what are some of these dealers doing now? “We have got in touch
with people at GMR Infrastructure who are the ones looking after
airport operations and they have promised to monitor and check our
consignment very carefully when it makes its transit inside the
airport area. This has worked for us at least for the time being,”
said Aggarwal. “We tried to claim insurance but it gets difficult
because we need to file an FIR and you know how the police can be,”
rued Jain.