362 Tonnes Of Pakistani Dates Hidden Behind UAE Labels Seized In Maharashtra

Karachi to Jebel Ali to Nashik: how 362 tonnes of Pakistani dates nearly slipped through

September 15, 2026

Dates shipped from Karachi to Jebel Ali and relabelled as UAE goods were intercepted by DRI officers at a Nashik container facility

DRI officers intercepted 13 containers of Pakistan-origin dry dates disguised as UAE imports at a Nashik container facility

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized more than 362 metric tonnes of Pakistan-origin dry dates that were being smuggled into India disguised as UAE imports, officials said. Acting on specific intelligence, DRI officers intercepted 13 containers at the Container Freight Station (CFS) Ambad in Nashik, Maharashtra, imported by a Mumbai-based firm. The paperwork accompanying the shipment declared the goods had arrived from Jebel Ali, UAE — but a preliminary investigation found the real story was far more elaborate.

How The Disguise Worked

According to DRI officials, the dry dates were originally shipped out of Karachi Port in Pakistan and sent to Jebel Ali Port in the UAE. Once there, the cargo was transferred into an entirely different set of containers and loaded onto a separate vessel bound for India — a classic transshipment manoeuvre designed to erase any paper trail linking the goods back to Pakistan. The onward movement into India was reportedly facilitated by entities operated by Pakistani nationals.

Why This Matters: The Post-Pahalgam Ban

The seizure falls squarely under India’s blanket prohibition on Pakistan-origin goods, imposed under DGFT Notification No. 06/2025-26, effective May 2, 2025, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack. The ban covers not just direct imports but also goods routed through third countries — precisely the loophole this shipment appears to have tried to exploit.

Part Of A Bigger Pattern

This isn’t an isolated case. DRI’s ongoing Operation Deep Manifest has repeatedly caught similar attempts to route Pakistani goods into India via the UAE, including an earlier seizure of 1,115 tonnes of Pakistani goods worth nearly ₹9 crore at Nhava Sheva port in mid-2025, and an 800-tonne haul of cosmetics and dried dates also routed through Jebel Ali. Officials say the operation reflects a sustained effort to dismantle the documentation-fraud networks that keep attempting to bypass the restriction, treating each new seizure as evidence of both the scale of the smuggling attempts and the persistence of enforcement against them.

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