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Cigarette smugglers smoked out
By Tan Wei Zhao
EAGLE-EYED Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) officers spotted two vehicles trying to smuggle large stashes of contraband cigarettes into Singapore in separate incidents on Friday.
Both vehicles were stopped at the Woodlands Checkpoint after crossing the Causeway.
In the first incident at around midnight, 11,200 packs of cigarettes were wrapped in rubbish bags and hidden under a 2.7-metre-wide trailer.
This is too wide for the ICA's container scanner, and the smugglers had hoped to bypassing it.
But they could not fool the vigilant ICA officer SSGT Syed Amran.
During his manual inspection of the trailer, SSGT Syed crawled under the trailer and noticed the reflection from the rubbish bags.
He then removed a layer of wooden planks, which revealed a large compartment stuffed with cigarette boxes.
Later at around 10am, a car with 1,400 packs stuffed in a modified fuel tank and under the floorboards was also stopped.
The suspects have been handed over to Singapore Customs and will be charged.
The combined market value of the cigarettes is over $120,000.
In the first six months, 1.6 million packets of duty-unpaid cigarettes were seized, and 2,549 buyers were caught and fined.
By Tan Wei Zhao
EAGLE-EYED Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) officers spotted two vehicles trying to smuggle large stashes of contraband cigarettes into Singapore in separate incidents on Friday.
Both vehicles were stopped at the Woodlands Checkpoint after crossing the Causeway.
In the first incident at around midnight, 11,200 packs of cigarettes were wrapped in rubbish bags and hidden under a 2.7-metre-wide trailer.
This is too wide for the ICA's container scanner, and the smugglers had hoped to bypassing it.
But they could not fool the vigilant ICA officer SSGT Syed Amran.
During his manual inspection of the trailer, SSGT Syed crawled under the trailer and noticed the reflection from the rubbish bags.
He then removed a layer of wooden planks, which revealed a large compartment stuffed with cigarette boxes.
Later at around 10am, a car with 1,400 packs stuffed in a modified fuel tank and under the floorboards was also stopped.
The suspects have been handed over to Singapore Customs and will be charged.
The combined market value of the cigarettes is over $120,000.
In the first six months, 1.6 million packets of duty-unpaid cigarettes were seized, and 2,549 buyers were caught and fined.
