DRI seizes 362 tonnes of Pakistan-origin dates routed through Jebel Ali

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized more than 362 metric tonnes of Pakistan-origin dry dates at a container yard in Nashik on Monday, the finance ministry said, in a case it has placed under Operation Deep Manifest, the unit's drive against third-country routing of goods barred from Pakistan.

Officers intercepted 13 containers at CFS Ambad. A Mumbai firm had imported the consignment from Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. The papers listed the UAE as the country of origin. Preliminary work, the ministry said, showed the dates had first left Karachi for Jebel Ali in one set of boxes on one ship, then been moved into a second set of boxes and loaded on a second ship for India. Entities run by Pakistani nationals handled the second leg, according to the same statement.

India banned direct and indirect imports and transit of goods originating in or exported from Pakistan through DGFT Notification No. 06/2025-26 on 2 May 2025, after the Pahalgam attack, on national security grounds. The ban covers the obvious land crossings and the less obvious trick of a stop in a Gulf port that resets the origin box on a bill of lading. Deep Manifest exists because that trick is now the trade.

Dry dates are a high-volume, low-glamour cargo. They move in containers, they have a ready market in western India, and they are easy to relabel. Three hundred and sixty-two tonnes is not a symbolic sample. It is 13 full boxes. Someone paid freight from Karachi to Jebel Ali, paid again from Jebel Ali to an Indian port, and paid the CFS charges in Nashik on the bet that the origin line would hold.

The legal point is origin, not quality. UAE-origin dates can enter. Pakistan-origin dates cannot, even if they spent a week on a quay in Dubai. Trans-shipment that does no more than change the container number is not processing. DRI's case, as stated, is that the Jebel Ali stop was a paper change. If that holds, the importer faces seizure, penalties and a possible criminal file for misdeclaration.

Jebel Ali is the region's largest trans-shipment machine. It is also the port where a Karachi box can become a Dubai box in an afternoon. Indian customs has been writing that pattern into case files since the May 2025 ban. Each seizure is a message to the next Mumbai importer: the second vessel does not wash the first port.

The ministry's language was institutional. It said DRI would keep identifying, intercepting and seizing Pakistan-origin goods moved through third countries, and that the Nashik haul showed a network using misdeclaration, trans-shipment and document changes. It did not name the Mumbai firm in the public note. That name will surface if a show-cause notice or a prosecution is filed.

Trade bans work only if origin can be proved after a cargo has been unpacked and repacked. Shipping records, container histories and the identity of the Jebel Ali handler are the evidence trail. Those records exist. Whether they survive a courtroom test is the next step. Until then the dates sit in Nashik as seized goods, and the ban is being enforced at the CFS gate rather than at the Wagah fence.

Nashik is inland. The boxes had already left a port and reached a CFS. Intercepting them at Ambad means DRI was reading the voyage, not only the gate. Container numbers out of Karachi, a vessel change at Jebel Ali, and a Mumbai importer form a chain. Once that chain is on paper, a UAE origin line is just a stamp.

For importers who have spent a year looking for a lawful substitute, the lesson is dull and expensive. If the fruit grew in Pakistan, a UAE bill of lading is not a new passport. DRI has now said that in 362 tonnes of print.