Corruption won this battle’: Cargo firm Wintrack to cease operations in India, accuses Chennai Customs of harassment
CHENNAI : Tamil Nadu-based logistics firm Wintrack announced that it has ceased all import-export activities in India, effective 1 October 2025, citing harassment by Chennai Customs officials over the past 45 days.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the company claimed that the “relentless harassment” was triggered after it twice exposed the bribery demands of the officials this year. This retaliation has left Wintrack’s business “crippled and destroyed” in India, it said in the post.
However, the Chennai customs department denied the claims and wrote a detailed response to the post, alleging that the company was making false accusations in the face of scrutiny.
What the company claimed
Wintack claims in its X bio that it has exposed bribery taken by Chennai customs and, as a result, faced revenge, which forced the company to shut its operations in India. “Corruption won this battle, they can destroy our business, not our voice,” the bio read.
Wintrack founder Prawin Ganeshan reiterated the allegations, naming several officials from the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) and claiming that his wife’s company was forced to pay ₹1.5 lakh in bribe for a shipment. He further alleged that officers even offered a 10 per cent “discount” during the negotiations.
Chennai customs deny allegations
Chennai customs issued an official statement on X to refute the allegations, stating that the company was caught for misclassification of goods, undeclared USB charging cables, and failure to provide mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) certification under the Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022.
Customs maintained that hearings were conducted, delays were accommodated, and bonding permissions were granted to reduce demurrage, but no bribe was sought from the company.
“This importer has an established pattern of making unsubstantiated allegations of corruption and bribery on this platform, only to delete such posts once factual rebuttals are provided by this department,” the statement read.
Public figures respond to post
Shashi Tharoor, Congress leader and Lok Sabha member, reposted Wintrack’s X post on his social media handle and called the situation “truly dismaying”.
“Corruption remains rampant across the system and most companies simply comply as part of the “price of doing business”. It doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed it must not be like this if the country is to grow and prosper,” he wrote on X.
Mohandas Pai, the former CFO of Infosys, also responded to the logistics company’s post. He tagged Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman and Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in a X post, saying, “You have failed to stamp out systemic corruption in our ports Please act.”
Source : Mint