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The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has suspended manual auction vehicle entries in its Web-Based One Customs (WEBOC) system following a serious breach involving unauthorized use of official user IDs.
An internal investigation revealed that user credentials assigned to Assistant Collector (AC) and Deputy Collector (DC) Auctions were misused to feed in data for auctioned vehicles without proper authorization. These suspicious entries were linked to three user accounts, created by MIS officers at separate customs offices.
- Two accounts, Zeeshan (CUS-3540517) and Yousuf Khan (CUS-3135725), were activated by the Directorate of IOCO, Lahore, on April 21, 2025, and remained active until July 8, 2025. These were used to upload auction data for 24 vehicles.
- A third ID, Waqas Khattak (CUS-2914393), was created at Customs AFU Faisalabad on February 26, 2025, and used for 31 vehicles.
Although these IDs were generated at different customs locations, the entries showed the auctioned vehicles as linked to MCC Appraisement West, Karachi, raising questions about jurisdictional overreach and process violations.
The scope of the issue is larger than initially expected. So far, 1,873 auctioned vehicles have been identified as processed through this now-deactivated manual auction data module in WEBOC.
In response, FBR has swiftly disabled the manual entry module to stop further misuse. A full-scale review and data validation process is now in motion.
To prevent recurrence, the Directorate has recommended a mandatory transition to the new “E-Auction Module”, which ensures digital audit trails, reduces human interference, and strengthens transparency in auction processes.
Until all data is verified and the system overhaul is complete, manual auction entry will remain suspended.
