- Joined
- Oct 21, 2009
- Messages
- 1,319
- Points
- 0
Contraband cigarettes seized
Posted: 17 October 2011 1804 hrs
SINGAPORE: Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers have seized a Malaysian "bus kilang" with 2,275 cartons of contraband cigarettes hidden in the roof compartment.
The bus is said to have had a mechanism that works like a pulley system used in old-style provision shops to keep cash.
It also had a conveyor belt to enable easy and fast retrieval of the contraband cigarettes from the modified compartment.
The vehicle was seized at about 9pm on Sunday when the lone Malaysian bus driver drove it to the Woodlands Checkpoint for arrival clearance.
Officers directed it for routine inspection when they spotted the anomaly in the scanned images.
The driver is said to have been promised 1,000 ringgit to transport the contraband to Benoi Road in Singapore from Johor.
The 27-year-old driver and the contraband have been referred to the Singapore Customs for further investigation.
The potential Customs duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) payable for the contraband are estimated to be worth about S$160,160 and S$15,170 respectively.
Buying, selling, conveying, delivering, storing, keeping, having in possession or dealing with duty-unpaid goods are serious offences under the Customs Act and the GST Act.
Repeat offenders can be fined up to 40 times the amount of duty and GST evaded and/or jailed for up to six years.
For every packet of illegal cigarettes, buyers may face a composition sum of at least S$500.
- CNA/wk
