Iran Customs Law : Smuggling

Iran Customs Law : Part VIII Offences and smuggling

This part include two chapters , chapter 1: customs offences and chapter 2: Smuggling

Chapter 2 – Smuggling

Article 113: The followings shall be considered as customs smuggling:

a. Goods entering into or leaving the Customs territory via unauthorized routes without undergoing Customs formalities and also goods entering into the country without doing Customs formalities or via unauthorized routes, detected inside the country.

Note: Unauthorized route means the routes other than those referred to in note 1 of article 103 of this law.

b . Non-leaving of temporary import, temporary import for processing and external transit and returned means of transports or goods from the customs territory within required period, and non-delivery of personal effect within required period unless non-leaving or non-delivery to the customs and/or outright release are not intentionally.

Note: Submitting untrue documents which imply leaving of means of transports and goods from the customs territory or their delivery to the customs shall also be subjected to the provisions of this paragraph.

c. Exiting merchandise from customs premises without declaring or without payment or securing import duties, either it is detected during the exiting from customs premises or after it. If who exits is someone other than the owner of the goods or his/her legal representative, the customs shall take the original goods and in the absence of the goods, shall take its price from the offender, and after collecting required customs fees, shall return it to the owner of the goods and the offender shall be prosecuted in accordance with the criminal laws.

d. External transit goods which are replaced and/or a part of which is removed.

e. Declaring goods whose import or export are forbidden, under the title of permissible goods, conditionally permissible goods with other name. Transit goods shall be subject to note 2 of article 108 of this law.

f. Existence of additional goods along with declared goods not mentioned in submitted documents to the customs, provided that additional goods are not of the same type of declared goods. The additional goods referred to in article 54 of this law shall be excluded from the scope of this article.

g. Declaring goods or means of transport whose outright export are forbidden or conditional under the title of temporary release
export or carriage of goods coastwise and not entered into the customs territory within the required period. Force majeure cases and cases in which non-entrance of goods is not intentional shall be excluded from the scope of this provision.

h. Permissible or conditionally permissible goods which are declared under the title of other permissible or conditionally permissible goods whose customs duties are less, under another name and using untrue documents. Untrue documents means the documents in which mentioned specifications of goods do not match the type and characteristics of the declared goods and/or documents which are forged.

i. Goods which are declared by using the scope of exemption and submitting untrue declaration and/or forged permits to the customs.

j. Replaced goods whose export are forbidden or conditional or less valuable goods replaced by export goods for which an export permit have been issued.

k. Exempted goods transferred to another person without complying with the provisions of article 120 of this law.

Article 114:If the persons who have business cards, smuggle goods, their business cards shall be temporarily suspended or permanently revoked, based on the proposal of Iran Customs Administration and after investigating the case in a commission composed of representatives of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines and Iran Customs Administration.

Note: Revocation of the business card shall not prevent the release of goods for which a letter of credit have been opened or transport of which have been began before imposing deprivation.

Article 115: If in applying customs rules and controls, a part of the cargo is considered to be subject to smuggling provisions, storing or seizing the remaining parts of the goods or its means of transport shall not be authorized, unless at the discretion of the customs it is necessary to store them in order to prove the act of smuggling or collecting fines.

Article 116: Any revising or amending in the detection and seizure minutes of meeting, removing or adding the name(s) of another person(s) in it as detecting agent(s) as well as modifying its contents shall be prohibited and the offender shall be prosecuted by judicial authorities for committing the crime of forgery and dissimulation of government documents, if it is intentionally committed. If forgery and dissimulation also involve another crime, the offender shall also be prosecuted for committing that crime in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.

Article 117: Supporting positive customs documents, to which it may be invoked in cases of possible smuggling, shall be the originals of the following documents:

a. Customs import license

b. Customs permit

c. Deposit receipt which results in release of the goods

d. Bill of purchasing abandoned, seized and unclaimed goods

e. Transit license

f. Returned goods license

g. Temporary import license

h. Temporary import license for processing

i. Transit permit

j. Carriage of goods coastwise license

k. Export license

l. Temporary export license

m. Passenger card issued by the commercial and industrial zones

n. Smart card completed and approved by the customs

Note: Specifications mentioned in such documents should match to the specifications of the goods and considering the type of goods and the manner of their use, the interval between issuance date of the document and detecting date of the goods should be appropriate.

Article 118: Regulations of detection, delivery, formulating smuggling minutes of meeting, seizure of the goods and apprehending the accused, informant, detector, the amount of penalties, manner of collecting, sale and dividing the proceeds of sales and fines thereof, procedures of referring a case to competent authorities and other issues not provided for in this chapter shall be subject to laws and smuggling provisions.